In 1961 when the U.S. cut diplomatic relations with Cuba, Archie Noy’s father phoned his son and told him to come home.

At the time Archie, then in his early 20s, was studying accounting at a college in Athens, Alabama.

Life in his newly adopted home was good for Archie. He was doing well at school, liked his professors and had a part-time job at a mill in nearby Decatur that produced Mother’s Best Flour.

He wasn’t ready to return to his native Cuba.

Let me check to see if I can stay, Archie told his father.

He went to Atlanta, filled out the paperwork and was given a student visa, which would eventually become a permanent resident visa — he became a naturalized citizen in 1966.

One of his professors was the controller for Brown Engineering, a government contractor, with a large presence in Huntsville.

The professor quickly said yes when his star student asked for a job. The prof’s confidence in his young protégé was well founded. By the time he left Brown, Archie had mastered all the accounting departments.

By now he was married. His wife wanted to move home to Ethelsville, Alabama, to be near her ailing father.

Through a hiring agency, Archie secured an interview with the controller at Michell Engineering. As part of the hiring process, he was interviewed by C.L. Mitchell, the company’s founder.

Archie was impressed by Mitchell — “He was so nice.” Apparently, the feeling was mutual.

At Mitchell, later CECO, Archie rose to the position of controller before he retired in 2002.

In the 20 years since, Archie has devoted his time to gardening, an activity he has pursued with the same intensity he brought to accounting.

Evidence of this was on display a week ago at the Master Gardeners’ plant sale at Brickerton. Noy supplied the MG’s more than 30 angel trumpets, lemon, fig, sweet olive and avocado trees and hostas, all of which they sold.

Friday morning Arsenio José “Archie” Noy is sitting at a wrought-iron table on a wing of his driveway that doubles as a patio. The morning is cool and clear. Fruit trees and a large althea create a shaded alcove, an anteroom to his Garden of Eden.

Noy, who looks 20 years younger than his 85 and speaks perfect, though heavily accented English, exudes the cheer of a man enjoying his life.

A neighbor, Diego Velasco, has come for a visit. Velasco, an emergency room doctor in Aberdeen, was born in Cuba.

The two men have only each other for contact with their native country; they know of no other Cuban nationals in the area.

They get together once a week and cook Cuban food, described as a blend of African, Spanish and Caribbean cuisines. They are quick to add it in no way resembles Mexican food.

Does he miss his homeland? Yes, says Jewel, his wife of almost 30 years.

“When we were on our honeymoon on the way to Grand Cayman, he teared up when we flew over Cuba,” she said.

“The weather and the food,” says Noy when asked about what he misses most about Cuba. “It’s warm all the time, but there are sea breezes. You can grow stuff year round.”

“There was music everywhere; it was fascinating,” Jewel remembers. She and Archie visited Cuba about 20 years ago.

Noy’s remaining family, his three sisters, all live in West Palm Beach, Florida.

He waxes nostalgic about the lushness of the countryside of Cuba and the variety of fruit available.

“Because it’s in the tropics, the variety of fruit trees is way, way higher than here,” he said.

“If you ever go to Cuba, you’ll see how beautiful the country is,” he says.

While he likely would have discovered a love for gardening on his own, Noy, who ceaselessly propagates and experiments with plants, cites his mother’s love for African violets as a possible source of his intrepid gardening spirit.

“I remember her putting in a glass of water a leaf from an African violet she didn’t have,” he said. “She was always growing things.”

From the street Archie and Jewel’s home on Stewart Avenue off Tuscaloosa Road in east Columbus looks like a small nursery.

Raised beds and neat rows of corn and peppers stretch over into a vacant lot that serves as the garden.

Other raised beds are filled with delicate, perfect romaine lettuce and arugula. Blackberries and blueberry bushes are heavy with ripening fruit. There are rows of butternut squash, potatoes, garlic and cucumber.

And tomatoes. Some years Archie puts in the ground more than 200 tomato plants. “I think one year I had 40 varieties of tomatoes,” he said.

This year he has 50 or 60 tomato plants. Noy says the Cherokee Purple is the best tasting tomato, though he favors the big producers like Big Beef, Goliath and Better Boy.

“You can get up to 60 tomatoes in one season from those plants,” he says.

His advice to beginning gardeners: Join the Master Gardeners. Their course gives you a foundation, he says.

Gardening is not a spectator sport, Noy cautions. “You can’t plant it and leave it,” he said.

No danger of that happening with Arsenio José “Archie” Noy for whom gardening has brought new friends, offered new challenges and in a way provided a connection with his beloved Cuba and his past.

“You need to stay active,” he says, “doing something you like to do.”

Birney Imes ([email protected]) is the former publisher of The Dispatch.

Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.

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