THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408290042
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
A column the other day sampled produce stalls hereabouts still offering fruits and vegetables.
And it prompted Dot Hanel in Virginia Beach to write and remind me of an additional one, Land's Produce in Sandbridge.
Now, how could I have overlooked Land's!
It's been nourishing us for decades and, as Dot says, it ``has many loyal regulars.''
Often, as excited as a child running to a Christmas tree, I have leapt from the car and rushed toward the stall around which customers are swarming, like bees buzzing at honey.
``SAVE SOME FOR ME!'' I feel like yelling.
Once, in a senseless rush to reach the wonders of some stall or other, I fell over a harrow.
It was a harrowing experience.
Fortunately, the harrow was not injured.
At this tag-end time of the season, the bright spot is that Land's relies on the honor system when no one is around to tend the stand, Dot observes.
You simply wait on yourself.
All the items are marked at an even price, so there's no fuss about making change. You choose the viands you wish to buy and drop the payment through a slot in the top of a box.
Amongst the fare on display are string beans (or snaps, if you prefer), cantaloupes, watermelons, corn, green peppers, and tomatoes, most of them growing right behind the stand.
``Heavenly!'' Dot exclaims.
Dot and Bob Hanel's grandchildren ``are totally fascinated with the idea that Mr. Land trusts everyone to put in the correct amount of the purchase,'' she writes.
The children vie for a turn at dropping money in the slot.
``He offers the small tomatoes in a quart container,'' she writes.
The small ones are the sort ``you were allowed to pick as a child when you were in the garden because they weren't `sizable for the dinner table.'
``All that good taste just reminds you of those years when your biggest concern was `Which tomato?'
``Then the confidence of Mr. Land brings a sense of pride that there is still trust in our fellow man.''
Reading her letter and writing about it is whetting my appetite.
My mind is dwelling on those small but flavorful tomatoes.
You know what those tomatoes would fit precisely?
A hot biscuit, spread with mayonnaise. For breakfast.
Talk about going to Mars piques the mind and it is a fine thing to do ``on the margin,'' as Arnold Toynbee once told me.
But treating the Earth, and its inhabitants, humanely is a mission we have at hand.
Mars? Yes, one day.
Right now I'd be grateful for science coming up with a year-round fresh tomato. by CNB