Something that makes me happy

This summer, my friend Steve from work asked if I wanted some of his leftover canna bulbs. "What color are the blooms?" I asked. When he said red, I knew I had to have them.

When I was a kid, my grandma Tillie always had huge--I mean gi-normous!--red cannas growing on the side of her front porch. She referred to them as canna bulbs, which we kids misinterpreted as cannon balls. We'd hide in the foliage of the cannon balls, where the air always seemed cooler for some reason.

As a kid, I thought the flowers were kind of ugly. But as I grew older, I'd think of my grandma whenever I saw them. So I came to love them.

And now I have a whole row of them behind my garage to remind me of Tillie. And of my good friend Steve.

That makes me happy.