We have a massive market downtown, and there are mini markets all over - even an organic market a few blocks from me that I can’t afford, and the products aren’t all local. Since I am one, it has been years since I’ve had a day at the Farmers Market with its straw-hatted and plaid-shirted farmers. Shuffling through the smells of onions, mingled with melons, Georgia rattlesnakes, vine-ripened tomatoes. Watching a corn farmer peel back the shucks to show a neighborhood co-op group, city folks plucking the brains of the farmers, asking questions about a different life. There are some restaurants around, some fiddling music, and tanned and freckled smiles. Saturday afternoon at the market, excited children, bringing home more than can be eaten, sharing with the neighbors. And on that note,

Sharing With the Neighbors



There is a man who, now languishing lonely in a group home, his once keen and giving mind too diminished to live alone, retired years ago. He and his wife lived to give. He’d had a good job, could not sit still, had served all his life. One day he and his wife drove down to the Farmers Market. We’ll call him Roger. Roger liked to talk. Roger had managed a fine men’s clothing store and was fond of telling of people who would not buy a suit unless he sold it to them. And he would show how he measured, fit, and as long as you listened, he would smilingly talk to you. So it came naturally that Roger would talk to one farmer, then another, and came upon the idea of talking to the head farmer who rented the spaces. The head farmer told him he was free to ask for the left over produce that any vendor would give him. Ever Monday morning, Roger went to the marked and brought home his van loaded with the culls and leftovers the farmers would give him. He and his wife would spend that day in the garage cleaning up the vegetables and putting them in sacks and boxes. Next day Roger would call his nearby neighbors to “come get you some fresh peaches - all you want,” or plums, or tomatoes, or apples, or any kind you could name. They were washed, trimmed and perfect. Then he and his wife would take bags fulls to shut-ins, a Mother’s Day Out, a food pantry. And his wife sometimes would make cobblers, breads and fill jars. Roger took his wife early each morning to walking group at a nearby mall. The mall managers would send her home with pots of flowers and plants when they changed out their interior decorating which would also be delivered to sick, shut-ins, and neighbors. And all this was just a smidgen of what they did for their neighbors. His little wife died a few years back, and the new management at the Farmers Market wouldn’t let him “do his thing” any more, so then he drove a truck collecting day old bread for the food pantry. He would sneak out some biscuits, cookies, or a few goodies, and hang them on a neighbor’s fence or front door knob. He would not let anyone see him. He was called the “Biscuit Fairy.” He was never caught without a smile or a kind word, and he wouldn’t listen to any unkind words. His face would just go blank. Most of the time if you wanted to see him, he would be in his yard with a handkerchief on the back of his neck “like mama taught us to do to protect us from the sun.”


Now his little home sits empty, and there is no one well enough to talk with him or listen to him as he paces his days in this so-called “group” home with 3 residents, a big flat screen and beautiful cold accoutrements. When you visit him, he’s likely to say cheerfully “Hello, neighbor, it’s a wonder you didn’t catch me doing something - I’m busy all the time.”









Farmer's Market

By Marilyn (LaraOct7@aol.com)

Early on weekend mornings, just before dawn,
Farm trucks pull up and back into vegetable stalls.
Unloading fresh vegetables is pretty much routine,
Hauling the baskets out, displaying the fruits like a team.


Rough, weathered hands and full ruddy cheeks,
Gingham aprons, fresh laundered jeans every week.
You can't miss the healthy glow and sunbeam smiles,
of men and women who farm the fields and work the plows.


Aromas surround the bins that hold the fruits:
plums, apricots, grapes, hardened apple juice.
A farm wife stands with a swatter, killing flies,
While her husband bags up fresh peaches and homemade Whoopie Pies.


Today's most popular stand is one selling homemade jellies and jams.
The short, round farmwife is noted for the foodstuff she cans,
fig preserves and marmalade jelly being her specialities.
How wise she is to offer samples.


Late afternoon and the stalls are near empty,
most of the produce having been sold and the left-overs looking limpy.
Household shoppers have come and gone, and the day is nearly done.
The trucks have been reloaded and satisfied farmers have set out for home.