There wasn't much around us back then except Leo's Drive In (best burgers in town), the bowling alley, and a filling station with a Coke machine. Eventually, truck stops and a motel sprung up nearby, but mostly, the area consisted of farmhouses, barns, and fields sur-rounded by barbed wire fences -- the only things that stopped the tumbleweeds.

Growing up in a trailer park was not exactly a visual feast. Occasionally, a retired couple kept a neat toolshed filled with gardening tools and fertilizer. One couple set a pristine turquoise-and-white trailer into a garden that was manicured to perfection. A birdhouse hung from a Chinese elm, and a birdbath sat in its shadow. To see the lilacs and daffodils bloom in the springtime was heavenly. I can still smell those lilacs.

Though these tiny bits of Eden were few and far between, they made an impact on me. My mother worked hard to improve our garden, and every year it grew more beautiful. Each spring, filled with optimism and the delicious anticipation of beauty, we went to the local nursery to buy flats of petunias and perhaps a climbing rose or two. The intense smell of rich, fresh soil was strangely alluring. And the colors! Flowers everywhere -- quite a contrast to the dry, utterly flat Texas landscape.

The impetus for these nursery trips was the inspiration we gleaned from what we called "the fancy part of town." A few times a year, Mama would take us to look at the rows of elegant houses and their gardens. My two brothers, my sister, and I would load into the white Chevy, and off we'd go in search of escape and inspiration. Making it even more of a special treat, Mama would stop at Leo's Drive In on the way. Bags of burgers and onion rings filled the car with a delicious aroma as we each carefully held a red-and-white paper cup of ice-cold Dr Pepper or, on a good day, chocolate malt. Then we would continue on our way. Mama, at only five feet tall, would wrestle the Chevy without power anything to the fancy part of town.