Sam Venable 

Department of Irony

I’ve just finished reading a big medical story from Texas, and my reaction can be summed up in two boring words: “Well, duuuuh!”

Maybe you’ve heard about this thing, too. If so, and if you’re a native or longtime East Tennessean, you probably share my feelings.

First the facts, straight from a Scripps Howard News Service dispatch from Wichita Falls, Texas. The story, written by Judith McGinnis, describes a strange turn of events that occurred in the life of a 26-year-old Wichita Falls man named Justin Martin.

In May 2007, Martin was ejected from his car during a wreck on a rural Texas road. He suffered a broken pelvis, plus arm and knee injuries so severe he underwent multiple surgeries and months of physical therapy. During follow-up treatment, a painful, marble-sized lump appeared on Martin’s left arm. Surgeons removed it for biopsy. That’s when they discovered a tiny plant.

It was a cocklebur that was sprouting. No joke.

Doctors concluded the cocklebur had jammed into a deep cut during the wreck. Undetected, it migrated six inches and eventually got close enough to the surface of his skin to find light. Then — voila! —it sprouted. Ever since, Martin has become quite a celebrity in medical and botanical circles. He was featured in the 2011 edition of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Well, OK. Perhaps it is significant that a plant took root inside a living human body. If this had been a watermelon, a dogwood tree, tumbleweed, goldenrod, a muscadine vine — heck, even kudzu — I would have shouted, “Holy Luther Burbank!”

But a cocklebur? Good grief.

Cockleburs will grow anywhere. If you don’t believe it, I invite you to slog through the sterile mudflats of any TVA lake in late summer.

After decades of impoundment, the soil on the bottom of our reservoirs is as leached of nutrients as a chunk of chipped concrete. Calling it “dirt” or, more accurately, “mud” is a stretch of both language and agronomy. This stuff is stickier than 50 sheets of flypaper, gooier than condensed honey, and so poor it makes Job’s turkey look like a Butterball. It will support no life whatsoever. With one exception.

Cockleburs.

As soon as tributary reservoirs start dropping in August, wade (I use the term loosely) across the nearest mudflat and see for yourself. Water will hardly have receded before these vast expanses of barren wasteland are lush with green cocklebur plants. By the multiplied millions.

I’m amazed energy researchers haven’t discovered this vegetative gold mine. Who needs switchgrass? Just turn cockleburs into biofuel, and the price of gasoline should drop to pennies per gallon overnight.

Green cockleburs are no big deal. But as soon as they die and turn brown, they evolve into a gazillion-billion, itty-bitty, needle-pointed balls of Velcro that cling tenaciously to any material from armor plate on down. Ask anyone foolish enough to walk within touching distance of a mature cocklebur plant while wearing corduroy pants and a wool shirt.

But wait until they quit hollering first, or else you’re bound to get an earful. Of cuss words and cockleburs.

Sam Venable is an author, stand-up comedian, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. He may be reached at sam.venable@outlook.com.