A few years ago, an older lesbian couple in Richmond, California, sold their house and moved to a nursing home. One woman was confined to a wheelchair, I was told. They had purchased the home in the 1970s, and when they moved out, I bought an unusual garden implement at their estate sale. I also bought their old rototiller, but this story isn't about rototillers.
The garden tool I purchased was leaning against the back wall of their basement, alongside an assortment of garden paraphernalia commonly found at estate sales. But this tool was one-of-a-kind. I'd never seen anything like it, but I appreciate old things, so it practically leapt into my hands. I couldn't tell you how much I paid for it, but I would have paid more if asked. It is a savage-looking thing. Manufactured before I was born, I am sure. A five-pronged trident. Its five spikes curve into a claw, identifying it as something other than a trident. Made of steel, it is used for cultivating soil. The original hardwood handle is intact and worn smooth by the hands of the two women who used it. It was built to endure, and tools aren't constructed that way anymore. On my farm, we find it cumbersome to refer to it as the "old five-pronged cultivator tool," so we have named it the "lesbian tool."
I do not know the names of either woman who previously owned it. Perhaps names were mentioned at their estate sale, but I wasn't paying attention. Their names were typical for their generation. One might have been "Ruth." The other, "Betty," maybe. We could refer to it as "Betty's tool" if we knew her name, but we don't, so we won't. It seems more respectful to name the implement after its origin—the lesbian tool.
Estate sales are intended for emptying houses of perfectly usable items that are beyond a reasonable state of wear. This one was selling the women's furniture, circa 1970s. Old dishware and Tupperware were laid out across their kitchen counters. Estate sales always have pieces of Tupperware, and often without lids.
Backed up against a Richmond hillside, the front of their home was small, tidy, level, and unremarkable. The rear yard was anything but. It swooped and swaled against the hillside, such that no patch of ground might have been described as level. From a gardener's perspective, the terrain would have been challenging. Limiting. Intimidating, if you intended to grow your own food. Under challenging circumstances, these women created something to be proud of.
Handmade trellises brought vegetable vines up into the sun. Their citrus trees were expertly pruned. An established peach tree crowded a path that curved against an east-sloping swale. A persimmon tree was loaded with fruit. When people plant fruit trees in their backyard, they intend to stick around for a while.
The "lesbian tool"Courtesy of author.
The tool I purchased from them is now in regular use on my farm. It was not meant for the timid. You could kill someone with this thing, though I don't suspect it was ever used for that purpose. "Ruth" and "Betty" didn't strike me as being that sort of people, but I sometimes think of them today, and wonder what their lives were like. Same-sex couples are usually free to live openly these days, but I don't think that would have been true for them in the 1970s. When my husband and I moved to our farm on a rural road in 2013, we didn't give it much thought. Unlike other parts of the country, the San Francisco Bay Area is not a hotbed of homophobia, so we didn't think to survey the opinions of our new neighbors before we moved in. We didn't expect trouble.
The circumstances for these two women would have been very different fifty years ago. I am sure of that. Their lives would have required some bravery. As our country regresses to intolerance, I hope that the LGBTQ+ community is prepared to exhibit that same bravery.
I suspect that these two women are no longer alive, but our visit to their garden has stuck with us. I don't think they intended that. They might have just been two determined women who quietly staked out their ground and put down roots in a little Richmond neighborhood. I hope their fruit trees are still standing.
When I use their five-pronged cultivator tool today, I think of them. I imagine that we will always refer to it as the lesbian tool. It will outlive us.
Scott Terry is a prolific writer and gay cowboy/farmer in California.
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