Knitting wisdom.

My son had oral surgery Monday to remove four wisdom teeth. It seems to be a rite of passage for the teen years. On the surface, it's "oh, yeah - I had that done. Not fun." On the other hand, when a kid has Crohn's disease, no surgery is "oh, yeah." We scheduled the surgery two weeks after Remicade so his immune system had a little bounce back from complete supression. And we didn't wait until too close to the next infusion so he wasn't also suffering the usual flare-up stuff.

Nonetheless, he's running a temp and we're watching him carefully for signs of infection. He's wide open for anything, so it's always a worry.

For surgery that isn't supposed to be "a big deal," it sure does hurt. The swelling, the pain, the drooling, the sheer misery is appreciable. I remember it well. I'm sure A will remember it, too.

Why are they called "wisdom" teeth? Because they generally emerge after all the other teeth, usually in adolescence when - supposedly - there's more wisdom. They have to come out when they crowd the other teeth, ruining all that expensive orthodontia.

"Wisdom?" As if.

I realize that the Latin origins of "wisdom teeth" came at a time when people married and had children long before kids today finish high school. They grew up earlier because life expectancy wasn't as long.

So we're stuck with a term that's hardly apropos for the age of kids when they undergo this surgery. As for the rare adult who has them removed later in life, maybe so.

Through hours in the waiting room and bedside at home, I managed to knit from the yoke to completion of the Cropped Cardigan Sweater.

Hence, knitting wisdom.

Cropping and cropped knitting.

When I was 14, we lived in rural North Carolina, near Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. My dad had just retired from the service and he and my mom chose Goldsboro for a permanent home. (Not so permanent - we ended up moving multiple times after that, but moving gets in your blood when you do it every two years or so.)

Money was very tight, so I took a job stringing, cropping, and barning tobacco on a Wayne County farm. The pay was amazing, and amazingly helpful for the family. Boiling sun, sandy soil, sticky tobacco worms, and loooonnnng hours made each week an endurance test. There were a few compensations. The farmer's wife made delicious, hearty lunches for the summer workers, most of whom were teenagers and college kids looking for big bucks over the summer. And we were able to pick cantelopes and watermelons to take home once they ripened.

Tobacco on the stalk is a dense, variegated green. I never smoked cigarettes, despite constant exposure during my youth. Having to take cured tobacco out of the smokehouses put the kibosh on any interest I may have ever had in the habit. That smell gets EVERYWHERE.

When I was choosing the yarn for the Lion Brand Cropped Raglan Cardigan, the olive green just struck a chord. I won't say cropping tobacco was my happiest memory of childhood. But it's there.

I've had a lifetime of making do and doing what's necessary to get by. Somehow, I learned to appreciate the effort