vol. 6 issue 9
Hello, Friends.
The archiving of past issues continues but is at last coming to a close. For folks who’ve arrived recently, I am working on a collection of the “best of” and another book about how our relationship with the earth went off track, despite our best intentions.
Anyway, welcome.
So, my tomatoes. They are no more. As I last shared, my impromptu pick-up truck bed garden took my ‘maters with me to Tennessee and back through Kentucky to Wisconsin and home again where I took them to a farm on the outskirts of town where I was given a little plot…
But I wasn’t able to water them well enough, because the farm isn’t exactly far, but neither is it exactly close, not even as the crow flies. So, I was going to repot and donate them to another farm…but the man who runs it with his wife said the plants were already so damaged it wasn’t worth their time.
I felt deflated even if I can’t say exactly why. I could be angry at the landlord who banned gardens, but it was more that a vision I’d had of my life, and my desire for more self-reliance — to do something as simple as grow my own food — was spun down the drain.
As the gardener helped me unload all the pots from the back of my truck and dump them into the woods at the back of his farm (he wouldn’t accept any of my plants and dirt into his compost because it was all of unknown origin), I mentioned my disappointment. I regarded his astoundingly fecund vegetable garden and said I had hoped to at least approximate a portion of what he’d grown.
Then, because my failed garden had irked me to the point of self-pity, the pathetic place where vividly rendered visions of persecution and harm are natural, I stepped in to the dramatic scenery in my mind and quipped, "I might be one of the ones to die of famine in the next ten years.”
Drama queenliness aside, in my old life, back in DC, or anywhere I have previously lived on the East Coast, my comment would have been perplexing, or just weird, and rightly so. What famine? But here, the response was quick: he’d probably have to give up all his harvest anyway because no matter how armed he might be, “they’d” be armed even more.
I’ve had a similar conversation with several others around here, people who don’t cross paths much, if at all; i.e., their expectation of doom is not a cult tenet, nor a fundamentalist Baptist (is that redundant?) reading of Apocalypse, but an obvious conclusion. And I am not always the instigator of the talk (but I usually am; see above, drama). I could probably have this kind of talk with another 10 folks or more and still not exhaust the number of people who would immediately get my meaning.
I just can’t see how the next ten years aren’t going to be shockingly horrible for our country, and for the world. No matter who wins the U.S. election in November, any number of events could lead to food shortages, and possibly even famine over the next decade.
World presidents and prime ministers are intelligent. Yet, they act astoundingly stupid. Who are they pandering to? Why are they so venal? Will we ever know?
So, as we are hellbent for war in the Middle East, as homelessness worsens, as our tax code crushes 99% of us, I conclude there is a constituency that wants it that way, even though our world surely never needed to get this bad nor continue as such.
Around here anyway, it seems the least political of citizens — which, wait for it…is most people outside of the Beltway or any metro media market — they also seem to figure the math adds up to my doom scenario.
Meanwhile, I have a new neighbor. A young cop. Same age as my son. He texts me things he thinks I should know. His most recent text was cryptic: “Do you like potatoes?”
In truth, I am kookoo-bananas for potatoes, especially oven-roasted and served with curried mayonnaise, but “Who doesn’t like potatoes?” and “Why do you ask?” seemed more appropriate responses to his random, strange, question.
He replied that a truckload of potatoes had been impounded up the road by the Kentucky State Police. The scene was chaos as people who’d seen a notice on Facebook were showing up to get as many as they could. I should go, he urged, and quick, or I’d miss out.
I didn’t feel a need to rush. I only have myself to feed and why on Earth was this even happening?
But I did eventually turn up because it was on my way to running errands about an hour later, and it was a bizarre event, so of course I was curious. There was a line of cars stretching out into the street, disrupting traffic. A crowd of mostly women were clamoring at the back of the tractor-trailer, handing up their laundry hampers and old milk crates to a crew of men with snow shovels, who were filling the containers as fast as they could, then handing them back.
I stepped back because I was more interested in the situation than I was in the goods. But after a while, a man standing inside the tractor-trailer yelled out at me: Did I want taters or not?
I handed him an Aldi’s bag I keep in the back seat and had carried with me to the scene. “I’d only like a dozen, please,” I said, like an imbecile, forgetting that they had an assembly line that would not reassemble just for the sake of my bespoke order for a dozen free spuds.
I reckon I ended up with at least 35 or 40 pounds’ worth. Here’s the photo again:
I hoisted them into the back of my pick-up and went about my day, wondering what to do with all the spuds and whether I really should have taken them in the first place. I decided to take them to a church that has a food bank. I gave some away to people I encountered along my errands route, but in the end, before I could get them to the church, with a note of despair, I dumped them out because they smelled awful.
Was it because I’d been riding around with them in the sun? I doubt it. Maybe it was only a few that were bad; but which ones? Would the Facebook chatter soon focus on how many people had been sickened by the haul? I didn’t check.
I also never did learn why the truck’s bounty was opened to the public, but one man I spoke with at the free-for-all said it happened occasionally that a truck would be impounded for some reason, maybe hauled off the highway after an accident, and there would be cargo that needed to be gotten rid of, usually produce. That’s life near an interstate exit, I suppose.
What is clear to me is the memory of the small mob at the give-away. It keeps replaying in my mind. There was no shouting or shooting, but there was certainly jockeying for position.
I had thought I should not help myself to the potatoes. I didn’t need them. And then I ended up with far more than I could ever use and tossed them!
But what kind of beast might I become if I ever do need those potatoes? And would I eat them even if they were rank? To hell with fancy mayonnaise. Will I ever need to consider I might be shot for the sake of some bad spuds? Hopefully, I will never know, and also hopefully, neither will you.
In a twisted way, the combination of the potato incident and the farmer’s lament about being under-armed cheered me up about my lost tomatoes. I considered that even when we think we have what we need, we find its condition is rotten, or that the most prepared among us could be targeted for the very fact of their preparation. I am not sure why this made me less upset, other than perhaps the pressure I had been placing on myself to be ready for the worst could now lift.
The horrors of famine and other tragedies may never come to pass here in this country, or they might. Either way, much of my circumstances will likely be out of my control. Accepting that is a balm for anxiety. It’s what I remember every time the so-called “news” leaks through the “corporate news-less” bubble I’ve created around my life: Look at all the traumatic things I can do absolutely nothing about!
I’ve written about it before, that addictive cycle of being willingly traumatized by media, but still, the phenomenon scunners me. How is it that so many of us have come to think tuning into repeated images and messages of torture and war are protective instead of corrosive?
I don’t really know what’s yet to come, but in my life, those few times I have felt this low-lying dread, a dread that is there like something in the pantry — it doesn’t necessarily flavor my existence, but if I need a touch to bring the rest of the ingredients into balance, it’s always there — something did come to pass, such as 9/11 or a major flood.
My premonitions weren’t of the full contours of the events that occurred, just the intensity of the emotional hangover. I am feeling that tide pull on me again. But I carry on swimming through my life. What else is there to do? I have one solution only.
What these experiences have taught me is that when it seems humanity has turned on itself, lean that much harder into humanity. Be there for each other.
One day, I hope we clearly see who benefits from us believing that we prefer war to peace, catastrophe to calm, and that we close down their access to our hearts and minds, forever.
Speaking of catastrophes, I am still debating about joining the volunteer fire department as a driver. Anyone with experiences to share are welcome to either comment below or email me per this post. I have spoken with a few firemen, a nurse, and the former head of the fire safety curriculum at Eastern Kentucky University, twice.
Yeah, I have been obsessing about it.
I want to help, I love driving big rigs, and yet, even though I am promised that I will not be required to enter into any flaming structures, I am told I will need to respond to car accidents. I do not know if I can handle seeing crushed kids or pets, or any other the horrors that result from such things. EKU Safetyman (that’s his handle) says that is not necessarily true, but the vol firefighter I talked to said it is. Still researching…
One thing that all of this research has brought into sharp focus for me is once again, humans are good. I might be ambivalent about rushing into the scene of horror, but so, so many others aren’t. They give and give, even if they are left with nightmares and pain from their efforts.
Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I appreciate you hanging in here with me even though I am slowly turning the ship away from past themes. I have needed to focus on the archives and book projects, and have been looking for other paid work, which I have found but could use some more (anyone looking for a writer or “content creator”, I am here…), but I still think of you all and my relationship with you. Last year was so much harder on me than I realized until now when things have finally settled down. Having my readers has been a constant, and I bless you for your support.
Peace,
Whitney
Brilliant post, dear Whitney. And volunteer fire dept? Whoa! xo
So, my former life was as a morning radio host. For many years and most recently in Denver, but over the course of my career, one of the constants was the number of people who would line up to grab ANYTHING that was free....key rings, drink coozies, stickers, stale granola bars, mouse pads, pens, pencils...potatoes:) We would joke that they would take our empty Starbucks cups if we offered...Seriously...put the word out that there's free stuff and it becomes a brain worm where people HAVE to grab some. I'm not sure I'd put much stock in the potato incident foretelling much of anything, other than people like free stuff and if we hear about OTHER people GETTING free stuff, we jockey to make sure that we, too GET FREE STUFF....even if we then throw it away:) Which is what I'm pretty sure happened to a lot of that cheap swag we happily unloaded onto the grasping masses. Anyway, sorry about your tomatoes...hope the pup is well.