Thursday, November 15, 2007

My Vision Statement


Well here's my "vision statement." It's a little different from ones developed for our Island's comprehensive plan ... but says so much more. It says "I am an Aztec Gold plumeria and I flowered in mid-November and aren't I beautiful?" Smells like heaven, too. It's physical, it's real, it says a thousand things yet is not abstract.

Now compare that to the 2020 vision statement done back in 2003, which a bunch of people are for some reason really proud of:

"The island has transformed its image; it is now a unique seaside community with a friendly small town character attracting a balance of permanent residents and tourists."

Now what in tarnation does THAT mean? I guess one could get into the grammar, logic, and rhetoric and conclude that today we're not a unique community, we're not located by the sea, we have an unfriendly, shitty attitude, and we're completely unbalanced with respect to tourists or some hybrid species of Homo Sapiens. And by the year 2020 we're going to fix that once and for all! Look, 11 pages of visions! Hmmm.

Can we transform our image like my frangipangi flower here, from bud to inflorescence to full flower? Over 600 people thought so, but I wondered what they really meant to say. But hold on, these are fighting words and people are real upset because ANOTHER vision statement done in 2007 simply says we're a coastal resort community and the tourists taste great. Now we're fighting over visions and I'm wondering if grammy is slipping psychedelics into her nooner martini.

Oh well, I guess I'll stick with my vision statement and let the others hash it out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sam beautiful plant I had one in Fla. but did not know the name very fragrent.I know the post was not all about the plant but it is so beautiful it stands on it's own merit. Still fell new here but am getting around Nancy on Jupiter

Sam said...

No problem Nancy and feel free to comment ... the "vision" thing is just a source of amusement to me ... but I'm dead serious about my plumerias.

Interesting, the plants on the north side didn't do very well, but the ones on the south did. The late winter really must have hurt them except for one hybrid (pink x gold) that my son successfully crossed, seeded, and planted. Neat flower with purple edges and a gold center, medium-light frangipangi smell.

Pollinating plumerias is quite an ordeal, since there are few or no natural pollinators down here. I use a sewing needle or a toothpick to transfer male pollen to a different flower's - female deal way down deep. It's a fun hobby. /sam

Anonymous said...

Sam, I think the 2020 vision statement was composed and adopted by some 60+ folks who figured, what the hell, we wont be around to see if were right or wrong....anyway, we need more of your vision scattered throughout the island, in the ground, rather than written on paper so as all can benefit now. Oh, by way the way, the last part of your post about pollinating was just way too much information.....remember my daughter reads this Blog too....love ya man

Sam said...

Gosh I'm sorry, I avoided using the real words because ... OK, my bad, I could show anybody and they'd say "that's really cool." Wish I could edit it but this software is cheap, free, and very limited. My apologies again.

The common white plumeria do seem seed better than any other kind, and I have a large pod containing maybe 30-60 seeds if anyone wants it. Left on the plant it will dry up and one day crack open. The seeds have wings on them and fly away as if magic - I've never found a single one after the pod opens.

But if you bring them inside to dry I've been able to get over 90% of the seeds to sprout, a remarkable thing considering I'm no botanist and am not lucky with plants.

That's always the fun part to explain, right? The seedlings grow so fast and really are cute. /sam