Ep. 231: This Country Life - Spotlights, Pink Tomatoes, and Bold Corrections

stories to share. Spotlights, pink tomatoes, and bold corrections. I come from what some refer to as the Land of tall Pines and pink tomatoes. It's a reference to the logging and farming industry that part of Arkansas was known for. It was a great place to grow up, and I'm going to tell you a little about the pink tomato portion of it. But first I'm going to tell you a story. It was a simple mission, catch them where they weren't allowed to be. We knew the adversary, we

knew where they operated, we knew how they operated. Careful observation had revealed their numbers, along with how they infielded xfield from the area of operations into hours. They made no attempt at concealing the trails they used or even bothered to wipe out their tracks, and that's where we had the advantage. We knew how they would come and go and when they were most likely to do it. Their advantage was speed and their ability to operate in

low light. They were masters of nighttime operations. Their night vision was generations above our own, and while the mission was simple, it was anything but easily accomplished. Also, they didn't have vehicles we did. That would prove to be our greatest asset in closing in on our adversary and our biggest liability by not knowing the terrain as well as we should have. The scattering reports we had about the lay of the lamb had been falsified, and it

wound up costing us a third of our strength. It was around twenty three hundred dollars when we moved out. It was early fall of nineteen seventy nine. My brother Tim climbed into the driver's seat of his nineteen sixty nine Ford truck. Sammy West, our lifelong family friend who Tim had grown up with, and I climbed into the bed and stood up next to the cab facing forward.

the outcome of events. The summer before, he'd grown a patch of watermelons and had sold him for extra money. They were good, and I helped him pick some and haul them to town to sell. He paid me in watermelon hearts. You know the good part. I'd work for that now. Well that in case pocket knives, But that's not important. What is important is that after the watermelons were done, he was supposed to take a tractor over there and disc up the hills and run a section

hard over it to smooth out the dirt. He said he did it, and the field had grown up since he'd retired from the watermelon business the year before. It looked like every other acre over there that didn't have peas and tomatoes growing in it weeds that stood about waist high.

Ten to fifteen deer took off in every direction out of that pea patch, and they made their way across that waste high weeds of the field that hadn't been planted. The one we were closest to was burning and churning towards the gap in the fence that separated the pea patch from.

field behind us say I'm over here. I jumped down this truck and we made our way through the weeds, only to meet Sammy walking towards us, still holding onto the spotlight with the wires that had been ripped from the battery posts. Tim said, what happened? Sammy said, Brent pushed me out of the truck. I said, no, I didn't. I was fixing the rope that deer when the truck started bouncing and the light went out. I looked around and you was gone. That's when we knew. That's when

we figured it out. That's when Tim, Sammy and I started a trio, of course, and disparaged monologues about our brother Chuck for not disking and leveling that watermelon patch. Like he said he did. Truth be told, he probably he probably saved us all from getting our butts kicked by a roped whitetailed dough. I don't know what we'd have done had I actually roped it, but Sammy was

uninjured and I never got another chance to rope. Chuck never leveled that watermelon patch either, And that's just how that happened.

no garden. On top of the kabellion acres the tomatoes we already had growing, and i'd be struggling in half the summer anyway. Actually, the most we ever had was about five acres, but it seemed like a kabellion. Turns out I did have the time after all. But I didn't like it. My friends that lived in town didn't

have to suffer through all this nonsense. They were all racked up in the air conditioning, watching Bob Barker and waiting on the YMCA pool open up so they could all meet up and swim in that chlorinated clear water urinal me. I was stuck in the middle of our farm, praying for rain to a cloudless sky and sticking tomato sticks in the ground and wishing I was dead. Don't get me wrong, I love tomatoes, and the tomatoes that were developed specifically for the soil where I'm from and

grown in my hometown are second to none. Some of you may have just rolled your eyeballs out of the back of your head and jerked a creak in your neck looking at the radio when I made that claim, Like last summer, when I received all kinds of watermelon feedback. When I talked about watermelons, you didn't mention this town, or that town, or this type of watermelon, And they were right.

This deliciously mildly acidic fruit or vegetable depending on which camp you're in, stands alone at the pinnacle of the Tomato Hall of Fame due to taste alone, period, there are none better, save your emails, calls, letters, and bomb threads. I will not budge from this position of how far hit and shoulders above all other varieties of tomatoes there are. And believe it or not, there are more than ten thousand different varieties available today to grow. Ten thousand plus.

That's more than twice the amount of people who live in Warren, Arkansas, the county seat the place where some of the most dedicated and frustrated educators of all time attempted to learn me stuff, and home to the Pink Tomato Festival, a hometown event that's been going on annually.

I remember seeing my pals in the sixth grade competing, but I was terrified someone would tell my mama, so I abstained from competition, never fully realizing my potential is a tobacco spitting athlete. They had a big sheet of plastic about three feet wide and rolled out on the courthouse lawn that was printed like a big tape measure.

Contestants would get a big cheer of tobacco or dipper snuff, and once they built up a sufficient reservoir tobacco juice, they'd let her fly and whomever spat the farthest one. I don't remember what the trophy was, but I do remember them giving out free samples to anybody that wanted them. Good Lord, those were different times, and times changed, and

this time they changed for the better. You won't see that contest there anymore, but you will see a lot of good stuff there, and you should check it out if you have the opportunity. But back to the Bradley tomato for just a second. In nineteen sixty one, at the University of Arkansas, doctor Joe mcfaerir and, at the age of forty four, developed the Bradley tomato plant to grow specifically in the soil and the humid climate found

in Bradley County in June. All my life I heard folks talk about how cool it was that that specific tomato plant that produced the epitome of the tea in BLT was developed and named after Bradley County. And now for fifty eight years, I've heard nothing different. Bradley tomato developed by the University of Arkansas for Bradley County in the story. Then I did a little research for some background on doctor mcfarren, who passed away thirteen years ago

in twenty eleven. He had an identical twin brother named Jack. He was a decorated veteran of World War Two and also served in Korea. His mama's name was Alis and his father's name was Bradley. What a coincidence. Maybe his dad changed it to Bradley after he had a bite of one and experienced just how good they are.

you can think of. You can put cheese or onion and potato chips, this kind of bread, that kind of bread. There's no limit to what you can do. But until you've had one in the combination, any combination with a Bradley tomato, you'll never really know the festival of flavor your taste buds will experience. It's like fried chicken. I love fried chicken, and I don't care if it comes from KFC, churches, Pope Eyes, cracker barrel, your house, or the hospital.

As they falled, an auctioneer around from table to table. The only air moving in that blistering asphalt melting heat was the big industrial fans mounted in the rafters that blew the hot air from one end of the tomatoes shed to the other, but at least it was moving. Not being one of the first to feel the many slots meant you had to wait in a shadeless line until one of the slots opened up. It made for a long, hot day, but it beat the tomato fields by long shot. Also, a lot of my friends would

be there. Some of them had farms and grew tomatoes too, and some worked up at the packing shed. A lot of the girls whose family didn't raise tomatoes that I went to school with would get summer jobs packing tomatoes up there. That place was full of pretty gals, and me and my cohorts frequently patrolling that location while we waited our turn to sell tomatoes. That was just a coincidence. But folks worked hard raising tomatoes. There wasn't any easy

thing about it. From driving steaks tied up to plants so they wouldn't fall over, to running the irrigation pipe, spraying for bugs, actually picking them. It was hot, back bending works work that would have you in bed early at night and asleep before your head hit the pillow, just to get up the next morning before daylight and do it all over again. There's not many of my friends that don't have war stories about the tomato fields

of our youth. But you could always get a job in the summer, and at least it wasn't houling hay ooh, hauling hay. I maybe having a flashback just thinking about it. Tomatoes were sold by the lug. That's a box to all you folks not raised in tomato country, and the lug averages about thirty pounds A fella could get a pretty good workout handling tomatoes because just like hey, you had to handle it more than once. Had to pick them, load them up, box them up, and load them at

the farm, unload them at the tomato shed. After the soul buyers bit against each other and the highest bitter bought the whole load of what was represented on the table. It was hot, it was stressful, and some families were depending on what the tomato crop brought as they substantial portion of their yearly income. I remember once when the market was down or on occasion, it was rumored that the buyers had conspired together to keep the prices load

to increase their profit. Now I don't know if that happened or not, but the farmer wasn't being paid enough to cover the cost of the expense of planting, growing, harvesting, and what the buyer offered was an absolute insult to the folks that had labored day after day to bring the best produce to market. After all, the grocery store prices hadn't fallen in relation to what the farmer was

being paid, nor had the cost of producing them. And I saw it explode one day as we waited our turn to sell, and seeing the ones before us getting pennies on the dollar for their invested labor. In one of the purported buyer conspiracy times. My mama was worrying stress, knowing the bad news that was coming when I was sold. But this one farmer, he made a statement. He pulled his truck co working the shed and dump the whole

load in the middle of the fairgrounds. Regardless of how you feel about it, right or wrong or indifferent, he'd made a stand. He'd rather throw them away than be insulted with what they were offering. Several others followed, not but nothing, there's too but refusing to sell them to those buyers at that price, and they seld them themselves as best as they could. That's a prime example of our inherent freedom to protest and take a stand against something that you feeled is wrong. And I doubt it

solved anything other than letting off some steam. But don't be afraid to make a Bowld correction. That was instruction given to me in ait at Fortsaille, Oklahoma, in nineteen eighty seven by an instructor in reference to adjusting artillery fire onto the target. Don't be afraid to make a Bowld correction. I've never forgotten that, and I've used it as advice for my life. I've had more than one bold correction in my life to make, and I'm thankful I did, and I'm ever.

being filmed. We just started filming the Bear Grease Render episodes, which is pretty cool. Now this country life isn't slated for filming and who wants to watch me stare at a microphone while struggling to read the stuff I wrote doing take after take. But we've got some other stuff we're working on that will be included that I hope you'll enjoy, and on that channel is where you'll see it eventually. One more thing, This heat is rough on

folks and pets. Try to make some time to check on them, any and all of them that might be affected by these high temperatures. Take them a drink of water and some tomatoes. Bradley's if you have the means until next week. This is Brent Reid signing off.