Column: Passages, Pond-hoppers and a 400-year-old payback fill early season

So, Dick Butkus has passed into history.

He'll be remembered, especially by the running backs whose once-broken bones still hurt every morning.

When Larry Csonka was the guest speaker at the 2004 CARP luncheon, a goodly chunk of his speech was devoted to the Chicago Bears legend.

"Rumor had it the Bears scouts went up to the piney woods of Illinois and captured him living in a tree and drinking from a creek," Csonka told the rapt crowd.

"They put him in a cage and poked him with sticks and showed him pictures of NFL running backs and said: 'These guys are saying nasty things about your mama.' Then they let him loose. Man, he was scary. He didn't look like anything human."

"My first professional play, and what happens? [QB Bob] Griese gives me the ball. My guards run into each other and fall into a heap, and here comes the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life ... Butkus, coming right at me, looking like he just came out of the bowels of hell. I looked at Griese and saw this smirk on his face and knew that he had set me up. So I fixed him. I gave the ball back to him. Griese was pounded. Really pounded. His voice wasn't always that high, you know."

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Garden spot ... Landscape designer Fernando Wong gets the best gigs.

In celebration of the 40th the anniversary of Les Amis de Vaux-le Vicomte ― a fundraising arm of the 400-year-old French château ― and the château’s capital campaign to restore the fountains and waterworks designed by André Le Nôtre, Wong has collaborated with American textile house Schumacher and sculptor David Harber to reimagine the château’s famous vestibule.

Wong infused the vestibule with plants, allium flowers, and orange trees, which Wong is returning to the château after Louis XIV infamously removed them from the garden in 1661.

Wong’s design incorporated Schumacher’s Chiang Mai and fabrics in a myriad of blues. The installation captures the celebratory energy of Vaux-le-Vicomte before an envious Louis XIV arrested the owner and took his artists and friends ― and orange trees ― to create Versailles.

Un tel salaud, oui?

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Pond hoppers ... Eric and Susan Willis Reikert are back from their summer in England, where their schedule included champagne and lunch at Belvoir Castle with David and Emma, the Duke and Duchess of Rutland.

It was more than a decade ago that Eric, an art historian, and Susan learned of the duchess' enormous undertaking to restore and preserve Belvoir, with its magnificent architectural heritage, world-class art collection and the yet-to-be-finished final landscaping design of Capability Brown.

They chatted at length, and Susan urged Emma to establish a U.S. charity to garner support for the project. She did. Today, the American Friends of Belvoir Castle supports an American student exchange program that offers an internship in preservation, restoration, and the ongoing completion of Brown's last masterpiece.

Now, the British are coming. On Feb. 10, the Rutlands are coming to Palm Beach en famille, where they will serve as honorary chairman and honorary chairwoman of the inaugural American Friends of Belvoir Castle gala at The Breakers. David Newton and James Borynack are chairmen.

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Seen .. Former U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks at the United Nations International Day of Charity at the UN in New York on Sept. 5. That date was chosen by the UN in homage to Mother Teresa, who died on Sept. 5, 1997. While there, Marks chatted up Swiss actress Jacqueline Fritschi-Cornaz, who portrays Mother Teresa in the recently released film "Mother Teresa and Me."

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Heard ... that Red Sneakers for Oakley co-founders Robert and Merrill Debbs are on their way home from Orlando, where they gave a talk titled "Food Allergy Advocacy In Your Community'" at the FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education) Food Allergy Summit.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Column: Green, whether money, envy or landscaping, is the color of the season