The dandy dandelion

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

When my grandmother came to visit, I could hardly wait to show her my latest accomplishments. I'd show her how I could jump rope for well over 100 turns without a catch. On another day, I'd juggle apples and oranges, though my mother wisely refused to let me juggle eggs, and another time, I'd ride my unicycle up and down the block, jumping up and down curbs, and even standing still by slowly rocking back and forth.

"What are you going to do with all these wonderful accomplishments?" My grandmother would ask.

"I'm going to join the circus," I'd reply.

I remember how my Nana smiled and told me this was an absolutely jim-dandy plan. She used the expression often. Curiously, I never asked who Jim Dandy was. It was enough for me to know to know that he must have been someone very special.

So yesterday, after three hours of mowing those places around the farm that needed mowing, we sat back on the front porch swing to admire our accomplishment. It occurred to me that the freshly trimmed grass looked absolutely jim-dandy. It also occurred to me that after all these years, it was finally time to figure out who this Jim Dandy fellow was.

I learned that the expression dates back to the early 1800s, when a minstrel songwriter wrote a song about a dandy fellow named Jim who was courting a lovely lady named Caroline. Over time, a dandy fellow, not even necessarily named Jim, was simply referred to as a Jim Dandy. With the passing of more time, the hyphenated jim-dandy expression gained popularity when describing someone, or something, that was excellent, and the expression could be used as either a noun or an adjective. "That pie was a real jim-dandy" or "now that’s a jim-dandy idea."

Well, this morning, as I settled into my front porch rocking chair and surveyed the farm beyond, I quickly realized that our jim-dandy mowing of the day before, no longer looked quite so excellent. Every single one of those low-lying dandelions over which the mower blades had passed, was now standing puff-ball tall and waving in the morning breeze. These puff balls hardly looked jim-dandy. I sighed, and then I began to wonder how dandelions had gotten their name. When yellow and low lying they are pretty and really are quite dandy, but once they turn into tall spires with puff ball heads, they are anything but.

I learned that "dandelion" comes from the French phrase dent-de-lion, meaning "lion's tooth." The French phrase refers to the plant's coarsely toothed, jagged leaves. Apparently, someone thought the leaves resembled a lion's teeth. When anglicized, dent-de-lion became dandelion.

And so it happened that what was once our jim-dandy landscape, had overnight became a not so jim-dandy field of dandelions, and then it occurred to me that perhaps I should mow again. My reason, however, prevailed and I quickly decided not to. What I really needed to do was brush the little horses and Highland cattle. I stood up from my rocking chair and headed down the hill to the pasture, swinging my handy-dandy bucket of brushing tools by my side.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.