Dandelions wake up the world around them with bright cheerful yellow blooms that bees and butterflies love. Yet, they are considered weeds and unappreciated by many people because they are invasive, spread aggressively, and interfere with cultivated plants.

Formal gardens eschew dandelions and gardeners work energetically to remove them even though they are rich in nutrients and useful in medicine due to their antioxidant properties. They provide food and medicine—and yet are universally despised.

Some people go through life much like dandelions; overlooked, unappreciated, and spurned by others. Here’s lifting praises to Dandelion People. Dandelion People have shaped and enriched my life and fill my 50 books (one finished but not yet published) with vivid characters and interesting to amusing incidents and events.

Many of the dandelion people I have personally known are from home of my heart, Bandera, Texas. Since they are sadly gone from this life now I feel that I can name them. My first eight books, the Miz Mike series, depend on dandelion folks for interest and humor.

Harold Jenkins was a short, twisted man whose appearance frightened children who did not know him. It was not only his limbs that were twisted—his facial features were also twisted and caused him to speak out of the side of his mouth. He could read, he could write, and he loved driving his truck. In spite of his physical challenges, Harold was a volunteer fire fighter and ambulance driver and attended church regularly.

Ross was a deaf mute. He lived on an isolated ranch and drove his tractor down his driveway to the main road where he would wait for someone to pick him up and give him a ride into town. Old timers presiding over the “Table of Knowledge” at the OST Restaurant understood him and conversed freely with him. Sadly, I was unable to decipher his strange mixture of grunts and finger gestures enough to understand him—but son Luke, who was two at the time and needed speech therapy—understood him completely. I took Ross to Kerrville one time so he could sell his wool and he and Luke talked and laughed all the way there and back.

Then there was Gerald. My first job in Bandera was working at Frontier Village with him building tables for the Bella Union Dancehall. Gerald had a low IQ and needed supervision, but he was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known. He rode his bicycle into town everyday and waited around the OST for someone to hire him for the day. He would do anything from building fences to wrangling livestock and cleaning up after them.

History has its share of Dandelion People, too; people who live and die as unappreciated as dandelions.

Rosalind Franklin’s x-ray images of DNA revealed the molecule’s double helix structure, but she was not recognized for her work until after her death.

Ignaz Semmelweis’ pioneering work in antiseptic procedures reduced deaths from childhood fevers. Like Franklin, he was not recognized for his contributions until after his death.

Chico Mendez was a rubber tapper in Brazil. He led a fight for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest, and fought equally hard to gain rights for his fellow toppers.

Claudette Colvin, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus—and yet—it is Rosa Parks who gets celebrated in history. Probably few people have ever heard Colvin’s name or know her role in the Civil Rights movement. She was one of the Dandelion People.

Jesus has a promise for the Dandelion People—and all of us: “Your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.” Matthew 6:4.

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