By Larry Flesler

Gardening has been a hobby of mine for years and I never miss Buffalo’s Garden Walk.

My good friend Van and I made a day of it Saturday.  We grabbed a map of the gardens to view and stopped at Cole’s to plan our walk. We ended up staying at Cole’s for an hour and a half as Van insisted on having a steak smothered with mushrooms and onions. We both had four Dirty Martinis each and eventually made our way out the door.

We walked down Allen towards Elmwood, headed South on Elmwood and caught up with a few nice looking dames. We asked if we could join them on the walk and they obliged. They introduced themselves as Betty and Marge. Van whispered to me that I could have Betty as she was a “3-bagger.”  Van had his eye on Marge and her “nice caboose.”

Betty had the body of a pipe cleaner and was missing an eyebrow but had a nice easy way to her and we got along swimmingly.

We approached our first house and wandered into the back yard. We were amazed at the tiger lilies and sunflowers and the 14″ Koi fish in the pond were awe inspiring.

Van acted a bit unusual.

He was slurring his words and pawing at Marge like she was the last broad alive. He tried to wrap his arms around her, missed completely and fell backwards into the Koi pond. His head banged off an iron bench on the way down and he was bleeding like a stuck pig. Marge and Betty tended to him as I went looking for some help. I knocked on the back door looking for a towel.  A large man answered and was gracious enough to get a towel and some bandages.

The homeowner approached Van (he was still in the pond pretending to do the back stroke). Van asked if he had a towel and if he could use the commode.  Stan the homeowner was really nice about the situation, recognized Van and invited him into the house to get himself together. Van was finally able to get out of the pond and dashed towards the back door, yelling “Outta my way, I’m crowning!”

Marge, Van and Stan went inside while Betty and I continued to enjoy the garden.

About 45 minutes went by when I went inside to see how they were doing. I heard some moaning coming from a room near the kitchen and assumed it was Van being tended to.  I turned the corner and was  surprised to see Stan, Van and Marge sitting on the floor buck-naked, massaging each others feet.

Van, who was clutching one of the Koi, slapped Stan across the face with it and shouted, “Easy on the hammer toe, Stanley.”

I decided it was a good time to go. I fetched Betty and we made our way to the next Garden.