|
Managing Editor Scott Wright has been with The Post
since 1998. He is Gambling away all my tomatoes By Scott Wright A couple of weeks ago some friends and I were forced to drive all the way to western Mississippi to spend a long weekend at a casino in Tunica. I would have loved to give my money to elementary and high school students here at home instead of over in Ole Miss, but I suppose we still have a few too many hypocrites in Alabama. Oh well, maybe one of these days we'll join the 21st century.Anyway, in between periods of making dollar bills disappear into thin air and learning how not to properly use a GPS navigation system to find a movie theater – the new Indiana Jones movie sucks out loud, by the way – I found myself fretting over the plight of my two unattended tomato plants. My dad gave them to me a couple months ago and told me to keep them watered and fertilized and they'd be just fine. “Even you can't screw up a tomato plant,” he yelled with fatherly affection as he backed his truck from my side yard, past spindly, brown shrubbery and emaciated rose bushes before spinning his wheels through the weeds and gravel that serve as my front lawn. It turns out I can kill just about anything that needs water and sunlight to grow. No matter how hard I try, I always seem to end up supplying too much of one or not enough of the other. The drought was pretty bad last summer, so perhaps this story isn't unique but, I swear, I watered my backyard landscaping every other day and it was all grave yard dead by the first of August. So far this year, however, my tomato plants are doing just fine. As I reached into my friend Bill's wallet a couple weekends ago to “borrow” a few bucks, I started wondering what I was going to do with all the tomatoes I'm sure to have coming out my ears in a few weeks. (Perhaps I could give Bill a couple hundred dollars worth and we could call it even?) The plants are doing so well, in fact, that dad suggested planting the entire front yard in tomato plants next spring. “Just remember not to mow the damn things down, dipstick.” Anyway, while I watched the poker room dealers perform their best Doug Henning impression with my – make that Bill's – money, I remembered something that a local official said to me last month after I wrote an article suggesting someone over at Centre City Hall should take a little initiative and get the downtown area looking a little bit more like (GASP!) a downtown area. The official said to me, “Wouldn't it be a great idea if Centre would sponsor a farmer's market at the city park in the summertime?” Well of course it would, which is probably why no one has thought of it. There are a million good ideas just waiting to be hatched in Cherokee County, and it seems the people would be extremely appreciative of some leadership that could create another summertime tourist draw to compliment Weiss Lake and Little River Canyon, and help pinch a few pennies in the process. With food prices and gas prices going through the roof, and with more and more people having a problem keep a roof over their heads, it seems a Saturday morning farmer's market would be a big success in Centre. I told the official who came up with the idea for the farmer's market that he ought to hang up a few signs and run for Centre City Council, but he said he'd rather keep his current job and reap the benefits of a good idea he was willing to share with me for free, as long as I was willing to pass it along to the readers. Made me think of Harry S. Truman, who once said it's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit. So what do you think folks, is a farmers market in Centre a good idea? If you think so, let your city councilman know about it. And if any of them tell you they think a farmers market is a bad idea, ask them for their street address and pass it along to me. After all, I'm going to have to do something with all those tomatoes. |