Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller It’s late on a Monday night. I should have written this hours ago. But I was too busy transplanting catnip and trumpet vines that my mother gave to me. I was going to write this column about Mom, what with Mother’s Day around the corner. I was going to find some poignant way to say how much she means to me. But I ended up planting three catnip plants and four trumpet vines instead. Mom would prefer it that way. Never put off tomorrow what you can do today, she says, and I do too. It’s one of my favorite sayings. We visited Mom last weekend. It rained most of the time, but that was fine. Rainy days in Brownsville are fine. You can sit and visit at the kitchen table, play the banjo or a game of Scrabble, maybe even watch the Twins play a game or national TV (they won!), and not feel too much guilt. It’s raining. At one point on Saturday, I told Mom I was going to take the plastic off the basement door. That was on my weekend job list, along with trimming the...