Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Ants, and What You Leave Behind

Dogs are known for their barking and biting, bears and lions for growling and fighting. Spiders have the reputation of being clever at weaving their webs. But of all non-human creatures enjoying the earth, it is the ants who for thousands of years have been considered very industrious and wise!

King Solomon of old, as he gathered sayings for the Book of Proverbs, put down the ant as a model to be copied. The ant, Solomon declared, “having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest.”

Modern scientists, in just the past decade, have made a discovery about ants that would much please Solomon. Through extensive research they have determined that an ant on her way to and from a food source leaves behind a trail of complex molecules called “pheromones” (pronounced fer-o-mons). Other ants can detect this scattering of tiny, tiny chemical particles, follow the trail and find the food.

Army wives -- all people for that matter-- leave in their wake pheromones, of sorts. Things that can benefit others.

When you pack up and move away from Ft. Rucker -- or wherever you live right now -- and go to another place, you will leave behind something. It may be a rose bush you planted beside the door, a kindness you showed to a neighbor, a gift you made through various post organizations. It will be something you have made, or done, or said, or given. Probably, without thinking twice.

Fourteen years ago a group of Ft. Rucker women got together and planted roses beside the Chapel (church) buildings. Several bushes have survived to this day. One is a gnarled plant in front of the Chapel of Flags. Each season it brings forth bright red roses. The others, all pink, grow beside the Headquarters Place Chapel. They too still blossom.

The Enterprise greenhouse owner who sold these rose bushes is long since in his grave. The women who bought and planted them have retired with their husbands, moved far away. But the roses remain.

Not all people see any point in leaving behind much of value. Back in the early 1960’s -- at another place, not Ft. Rucker -- we had neighbors in the quarters (housing on a military base) two doors down who seemed to have five green thumbs on every hand. They loved and planted rose bushes, gardenia bushes, tulip bulbs, flowering shrubs. Oh, those people worked hard!

They had a flock of kids, and they frequently had all of them out digging in the dirt and weeding. Their yard became something of a showplace, the envy of the neighborhood.

Then, in the late spring, they got orders (to move to another military base).

“Ah,” we neighbors thought, “whoever moves into that set of quarters is sure going to be lucky! All those flowers!”

But would you believe that the morning the moving van pulled up in front of their place, that woman and her husband got out with shovel and pick and sacks, and dug up and carried away every single thing they had put in the ground! They didn’t leave a sprig! All they left was a group of neighbors, aghast!

Some people have opportunity to leave behind things of far-reaching influence.

During World War II prisoners of war who were detained at Ft. Rucker carved the ornate paneling now behind the altar at Headquarters Place Chapel. It is lovely with its graceful curves and sacred crosses.

Sunday after Sunday over the years -- now more than 30 years -- hundreds of worshipers have said their prayers before this enduring piece of work.

King Solomon said: “Go to the ant, consider her ways, and be wise.”

Do consider the pheromones you leave along life’s trail. No matter where you go, or when, something of you will always remain behind.

Published October 1977. Click your browser’s “Back” button to return.