Red Pontiac


I drove a dark red Pontiac Sunbird once, for about three months. It was sort've a fun car, and it was pretty inexpensive as a new car, as I remembered it, but if you got into the least bit of trouble on a curve, it would lead you further astray, and what was even worse, it was dying of terminal cancer at a very early age.

At the time, it sorta reminded me of some of the relationships I'd had. Cheap women that got me into trouble, and led me furtherous atray, and left me with gaping sores on my soul. I can't blame the women for being what they were; and they didn't pretend to be anything other than what they were. It was my own damnable fault that I ended up in those situations.

Adventures In Tater Husbandry

Later on, I raised a season of Red Pontiac potatoes. At the time, I didn't know anything about varieties of potatoes, and it being planting season, I didn't have time to stand there in the garden shop, reading descriptions and mulling over the purchase for hours on end. I has some space in the garden to fill, potatoes sounded like a useful crop, and Red Pontiac was a variety I'd heard of before, something my father had grown, or at least something that had been sold back home.

As it turns out, Red Pontiac is a highly productive cultivar, and it's rather attractive. It's mid- to late-season, though, and I'd prefer a really short-season potato for a waxy variety. It tolerates the muck pretty well, which would have been more a more valuable trait in the Black Swamp where I grew up, but it bruises awfully easy, which is problematic if you're going to be harvesting it when everything else is coming ripe as well. It's also not very resistant to potato problems, like black leg, tuber net necrosis, scabbing, and verticillium wilt. That is, it leads the gardener further astray if he gets into the slightest bit of trouble.

If I Planted Taters This Year

All in all, it's probably a variety I ought not be planting - but if I planted potatoes this year, I'd probably plant Red Pontiac. The heart loves what the heart loves, and there's no arguing with the heart. Maybe "tramp" is a term applied by jealous women (and jealous potatoes) to those with which they cannot effectively compete. I keep hearing people talk the praise of Golden Yukon, and of skinny women with no hearts, and I know they're supposed to be highly desirable, but I just can't get into them. Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, the Lord God loves them all. But maybe God has a special place in her heart for the tramps I hold so dear.

Em and I lived for several years just a few feet from the woods. That's not a good idea. The house was in poor condition, and I knew that, but I didn't realize how poor until we lived there for a while. I could walk into the basement and press my thumbnail into the joists above me, the dry rot was so terrible, and I kept wondering if I was going to be sitting on the toilet some day and find myself falling through to the basement, plumbing and all.

Fighting With A Tiller

I was fighting with a borrowed tiller, trying to get it started, nothing at all like the Mantis I have now, when Bill was driving by. He stopped his Case right in the middle of the stone road, but well, there wasn't a whole lot of traffic on the road anyway.

He loped over, and said, "You've been having trouble for quite a while, trying to get that thing to start." I nodded to him. I said I thought the shear-pin was half sheared through, and the timing was off, but I couldn't get the thing apart. If you can get it apart, replacing the shear pin is no biggie, a five minute job, but if the pin is half-sheared, it's almost impossible to get the thing apart. "How big did you want your garden?" I told him. He went back to the tractor, pulled into the yard, and swung down the flying wings of the disk.

He pulled forward, the length of the garden, and in 30 seconds, it was tilled. He swung around, and gave it another disking in the opposite direction, then swung around again and gave it a second pass in each direction, doing in less than five minutes what would have taken me five hours. He shut off the tractor, jumped down and asked me if that was about right. I laughed and thanked him. I helped swing up the wings of the disk, and reached for my wallet to pay him, but he wasn't having any. That's the way farm folk are. They are generous to a fault.

Remember That I Said That

Remember that I said that. There are times when I get wound up pretty tight about ignorant niggardly bigoted assholes, the kind of fundamentalist so-called Christian neo-conservatives that have hijacked the Republican Party.

And I don't mean to suggest that I'm wrong about any of that, because that is who they are. On the other hand, they are the same people who are generous to a fault when it comes to helping out a neighbor. Neo-cons are haters with broad groups, and extremely nice with individuals, while neo-liberals are extremely nice to broad groups, and hateful when it comes to individuals.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Thank God for the Red Pontiacs of the world!

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Potato IP

I was standing in miles wide dirt furrow in the south San Joaquin in 1971 and this is what the manager said to me, "Don't eat that potato."

Of course I asked why. He was my father in law. Of course he answered.

He said, "We grow these spuds for chips not for eating. They're very very dry. Low water means less time in hot oil. A dry potato is cheaper to fry. It browns fast. But you can't eat it raw. Your mouth will hurt."

Surprised, I understood that. But he continued. "Look. I'm here in a bottom pot of a long valley. I get the junk water. My land is cheap. And I grow the driest potato on earth and these potato are patents."

"I get legally protected seed spud shipped in from a geographically isolated and pollen-managed valley. It's surrounded by mountains and basically free of imported wind. I'm supplied with millions of sealed and packed seed spuds and harvest most of America's potato chips right here. You don't want to eat them raw."

"Water in a potato cools the frying oil. That costs money. These spuds are the driest potato on earth. That's why you can't eat them."

Sugar matters, too.

That's interesting.

Potato varieties used for potato chips are low in sugar as well. Sugar caramelizes when it is heated, and people seem to prefer white chips to dark chips. There's a brand that says they are made from Russet potatoes, and they're a very dark brown chip.

I've heard that there's a variety called "Atlantic" that's grown in the mid-atlantic states for potato chips. I've never seen them anywhere.

The largest chip manufacturer in Fort Wayne is Seyfert's. They were owned by Borden's, last I knew. They contract with local farmers for the potatoes they use, rather than ship them from California. I just assumed that virtually all potato chip companies "buy fresh, buy local", but your father-in-law would know more about it than I would.

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