European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 03, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Flood s Green thumb in a shopping mall Okay get a stay Here she Combs Ike Many other teen aged boys Kevin flood earned his summer i Money mowing lawns and tending Gar a Dens. Unlike other boys he liked it. He thought of it More As fun than work especially the gardening. Even then Kevin flood seemed to be a natural born Gardener and now at 23, the Garden he tends is a most unusual one. Not Many other gardeners get to work in air conditioned Comfort. I m Lucky i guess. Of course i also take care of the Trees and plantings  Kevin flood is the chief Horticulturist at Paramus Park . Everybody knows Paramus Park or something very like it. Paramus Park is one of those huge shop Ping malls one of the really massive ones the Mobile society s answer to the general store. It has acres of diagonally lined parking places no fewer than 118 terribly Clever stores Mossy waterfalls bubbling fountains a United nations of instant food joints serving instant so Uylaki instant tacos instant crepes instant bratwurst All under doily Magazine one Glass roof and with instant music playing every instant. Of Well at least the Flowers Are real. No i could t Tell you How much room All the Flowers would take up if you put All the planters together. Enough that s for sure. We have about 50 Trees and All Varie ties of tropical plants Gardenia Palm Scheffler Diffen Bachia spathe phylum. After a while you get to know every one. Not every variety every Plant. Taking care of them is a full time Job All right. The biggest concentration is at the Waterfall. That s where i spend a Good Deal of my  the Waterfall is a six tiered two Story confection surrounded by greenery and escalators and people eating off paper plates. As with other such watery places in this land the pools at Paramus Park Are full of coins. Somehow americans can t seem to resist throwing Money if it splashes but does t quite disappear. I clean them out about every six weeks and pick up anywhere from $300 to $500," Kevin flood said. I Don t mind that Job because the Money goes to local charities. What i Don t like is cleaning out the cups and napkins and cigarettes and other junk. I have to do that every morning. It makes you wonder about people. Why would someone want to spoil some thing pretty most of the damage to the plants All of it really is done by people. They pick at the leaves pull them off. They break branches off the Trees. They carve their initials. Did you know that Benny loves Mary the people who do these things Aren t just kids. I be caught ladies pulling up whole plants and putting them in their shopping bags. I Don t want to exaggerate though Kevin flood said reaching into a ficus tree to remove a hand puppet somebody had taken the trouble of attaching to a Branc with a Clothespin. Thousands of people come Here every Day. Only a few do the damage. In fact one of the satisfactions of my Job is overhearing people commenting on How Nice everything  True. Eavesdrop at the Waterfall and you discover that people do com ment and the plants do look Nice. And no wonder. Kevin flood has As he puts it a thing about plants. The summer he graduated from High school he went into business on his own tending lawns and gardens for about 20 customers. He loved the work. When Paramus Park opened three years ago he applied for a Job but heard nothing for months. It turned out that his application like so Many toddlers in Paramus Park every Day got lost. He reapplied was hired and when his Boss left he became chief Horticulturist. He has an assistant and a Crew of two. I went to Bergen Community College to try to learn More about plants but it turned out that everything they taught i Al ready knew. I have a pretty extensive Library of my own at Home. Everybody in the family says i must have gotten my Green thumb from grandpa. I never really knew him. I Don t even know his first name just grandpa Reis. But i do know he could grow anything and that he moved to Brazil to grow orchids. Anyhow it s True. I just seem to be a Leto grow things. Why do i like it i just like to see things grow. Why do i need a reason for liking to grow Flowers Don t you Pat Mccoy search for a Vineyard stories by Jules Loh associated press everybody should have an alter native Road Pat Mccoy said sip Ping contentedly almost  should have a turnoff route in Case life s superhighway develops a rut. Pat Mccoy a Jolly Good fellow with face like a Toby Mug and the proper Girth to match discovered his alternative Road while Reading a Book on his favorite subject. Its title cheeses and wines of France and England with notes on Irish whiskey. What More could a Man ask of life he mused than to be winemaker a wine maker in a cheese factory that was it. He put aside his order pad and his artificial smile he let his shoes go a shined and he set upon a search. He travelled the Oregon coast where he knew that cheese factories once proliferated. At Nehalem Bay tucked in a Hillside he found one abandoned. Perfect. Today that former cheese factory is the Nehalem Bay winery. I could t be happier. The wine is Good. The profits Are not bad. The Sce Nery is  Pat Mccoy will get no argument about the scenery. Nehalem Bay is an azure Inlet among the timbered Hills and crags of on of the most spectacular coastlines on the  those Hills will produce grapes is yet to be seen but their production of Violet foxglove and Crimson Elderberry and a riot of other wild and Beautiful grow ing things is astounding. Meanwhile Pat Mccoy buys his grapes from Oregon s Hood River country an equally Scenic piece of Northwestern geography sprinkled with Roadside fruit stands which Are impossible to pass up and never disappointing. I know you can grow grapes right Here on the coast though and next Spring i m going to Plant some. Right now i m looking for just the right Southwest slope. Won t that be pretty a Vineyard on a Hillside i want one just to look at. The climate is marginal i realize. But for the truly great wines the grape needs to struggle. We re at latitude 46. That s the same As medic. I would t be surprised to see Oregon become the new  Pat Mccoy at 40, is nothing if not an Optimist. But he is also a practical person. His choosing an old cheese House for a winery for example was logical As Well As romantic. How do you make cheese you take a liquid ferment it package it and age it. How do you make wine same Way. I Fig ured a cheese factory would be designed just right for a winery. At one time there were 21 Small cheese factories in this county. When better roads were built they consolidated into one Down at  the Way do you realize that in one 23-mile stretch of this coast you find wine cheese some of the Best seafood on Earth and also a sausage Plant. Do you know of another place with such a variety of native treats concentrated in so Small an area that s another reason i chose this area. I like Good food and drink. I knew that if i looked at enough of those abandoned cheese plants i would find just the right one and i did. That was four years ago. It s Small but it s just what my wife and i and a few helpers can handle. Our son Brian is the tour director. We like to show it off. Brian direct a  Brian led the Way through Cool dark rooms Aad passageways with comfortable old beams and Damp floors a a wide barrels cradled i heavy Oaken Racks. It had a medieval feel a a a Musty smell most Appeal ing. At the front of the building is the tasting room Pat Mccoy s favorite spot. He pre sides behind a counter with a Row of bottles set out and insists his visitors try every one. Does the vintner drink anything so precious As the stuff he Sells Pat Mccoy does. He tastes right along with the taster. Pouring he is Happy. It s a far cry from being a Salesman in t it after 15 years of that i was begin Ning to feel like Willie Loman. Now i m my own Man doing what i like to do. There s one problem. Now i Don t Haven  saturday september 3, 1977 the stars and stripes Page 13