"I will be the master of my cheese until the last piece."

The quote above comes from Jean-Claude Biver, who is in the business of watchmaking but makes cheese recreationally. According to the latest issue of The Economist, Biver's cheese is famously delicious. He makes "only" 5 tonnes per year, and it would fetch a fortune on the open market. But while an entrepreneurial fellow, Biver chooses to give it all away: "If I don't sell it, then I decide who gets it and who doesn't."

This story reminded me of my grandfather's tomatoes. Papa's garden was a magical place. He dabbled in a lot of produce -- apples, pears, peaches, muscadines, beans, squash, cukes, zukes, corn, etc. -- but his tomatoes were famous. His friends would save their milk cartons all year long, and Papa would cut them into square pots where he would germinate his tomato seeds under lamps or in the hothouse in the middle of winter.

In his retired years, especially after Gram died, gardening was a full time job, and Papa's tomatoes were very well cared for. He watered through droughts. He weeded with the care of sculptor. He used insecticides and fertilizers that Elaine wouldn't handle with a hazmat suit.

The results were tomatoes by the gallon, peck, and bushel. In good years, the mud room was full of sacks, cartons, and boxes with lush fruit. In bad years the output was still prodigious. Papa's largess went to family, friends, and neighbors. Instead of taking flowers to someone sick or grieving, Papa would bring tomatoes. Mom would put up sauce each summer, and we would eat them over spaghetti year round.

The reason Biver's story made me think of Papa is that Papa loathed being asked for his tomatoes. His pastor (or the pastor's wife, I can't remember) once requested that Papa provide tomatoes for some church function. He complied, but he did so in a way that made it clear that such a request was a sacrifice, not a free-love offering. A stranger once pulled into the driveway and asked to buy some fruit. Papa was nonplussed. He told the man in no uncertain terms that his tomatoes were not for sale. Papa then proceeded to give the fellow a few, just to get him to leave.

Sadly, I didn’t develop much of a taste for fresh tomatoes until Papa was gone. I sure wish the old codger was still around. I would love to share a BLT with him (mine without mayonnaise, maybe with a Schlitz beer or a Coke) and introduce him to Huck. Papa, you are loved and missed; God rest your soul.
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Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. I tend towards thinking too much about the past, and missing the joys of the present. That said, I don't ever want to stop missing my grandfather. Our grandfather/grandson relationship was pretty idyllic. I got the best of him. By the time I came around, he had mellowed from his younger days, and we were never in such proximity that he (visibly) tired of spending time with me. The things we did together -- picnics, trips to state parks or educational attractions, cooking, eating, piddling around the yard, watching tv -- weren't special because they were fun and stimulating, they were special because he was special to me.

Not what you want to see in the forecast:

From NOAA:

"IF YOU MUST TRAVEL TODAY OR THURSDAY...TAKE ALONG A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT."

It seems more serious because short-term forecasts are always in all caps.

Nonetheless, a foot of snow in late October is a lot of snow for a Georgia boy -- and it's still snowing pretty good out there.

Where's the Jesus?

This commentary is like a train wreck, I couldn't look away. In a recent sermon at our church, Brother Tim quoted Gandhi as saying: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians." I feel that way a lot.

Also, God hates figs.

It's October?

How did it get to be October? We had some nasty snow/rain/sleet mix today.

Not a lot to report here. Huck is crawling and generally doing well. He's very curious, and his favorite things are shoelaces and lamp chords. I am very much looking forward to a time when he can give hugs instead of just pulling hair (especially beard hair).

In an unrelated matter, when I wear my rain pants I can't escape the feeling that someone is following me.

2 Things

According to the song, there are 2 things that money can't buy -- true love and home grown tomatoes. Thanks to Elaine, I have both.

Happy birthday my love.

This picture has nothing to do with this text

I have read 2 novels recently where contemplation of divorce was part of the plot, Walter Percy's The Thanatos Syndrome and Garrison Keillor's Liberty. In addition, an essayist I usually enjoy, Sandra Tsing Loh, chronicled her own divorce in The Atlantic Monthly and questioned whether lifetime monogamy was really all that praiseworthy. This unfortunate set of reading led to nightmares and conversations with Elaine along the line of: "Sure our marriage seems swell now, but what can we do to keep the odds in our favor?

We didn't come to any grand conclusions other than the standard ones: keep communicating, spend time together, work toward shared goals, blah, blah, blah.

At any rate, I was primed to receive a spirit-lifting story, and here it is: Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear by Laura A. Munson. Munson might have a slight New Age-y vibe, but her story also feels very New Testament.

Ross Douthat's column today that uses Judd Apatow films as jumping off point to discuss the difference between talking the family values talk and walking the family values walk is good. So is Timothy Egan's on the danger of misinformation.

TKM

In ninth grade English, we read To Kill a Mockingbird (TKM). We enjoyed lively discussions, and our term papers on the book were our first real attempts at literary criticism. Now I’m wondering how my beloved Mrs. Spurlock would have graded Malcolm Gladwell. Here’s a paragraph from Gladwell’s essay:

"In the middle of the novel, after Tom Robinson’s arrest, Finch spends the night in front of the Maycomb jail, concerned that a mob might come down and try to take matters into its own hands. Sure enough, one does, led by a poor white farmer, Walter Cunningham. The mob eventually scatters, and the next morning Finch tries to explain the night’s events to Scout. Here again is a test for Finch’s high-minded equanimity. He likes Walter Cunningham. Cunningham is, to his mind, the right sort of poor white farmer: a man who refuses a W.P.A. handout and who scrupulously repays Finch for legal work with a load of stove wood, a sack of hickory nuts, and a crate of smilax and holly. Against this, Finch must weigh the fact that Cunningham also leads lynch mobs against black people. So what does he do? Once again, he puts personal ties first. Cunningham, Finch tells his daughter, is “basically a good man,” who “just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.” Blind spots? As the legal scholar Monroe Freedman has written, “It just happens that Cunningham’s blind spot (along with the rest of us?) is a homicidal hatred of black people.” "

Agree with him or not (and I think he goes a little overboard here) Malcolm Gladwell can flat out write. He makes connections that I would never ever see on my own.