WITNESS A LITTLE TOUCH OF MIDSUMMER MADNESS

In order to provide a little dribble of interest to lighten the upcoming, sultry dog days, I'm conducting an experiment that will require moments of watching. I've put a sweet potato plant into a hanging pot. Not a sweet potato, as we need to do to enjoy the resulting luxuriant vine but a sweet potato plant that will, who knows, result in a sweet potato, maybe two, this fall. When one has nearly a half acre of yard, it seems a bit silly to put such a plant into a pot, but the experiment will afford me many moments of wonderment and anticipation.

When I walked into Sunny Hill Garden Center and announced I wanted one sweet potato plant, the pretty little clerk picked up the whole bunch as they come, maybe fifty to a bunch.

"No," I explained. "I really want only one plant."

The first bit of interest the one plant provided was the expression on her face.

"This is the way them come," she explained.

"I know," I replied, "but I've been such a good customer of Sunny Hill for so many years I thought maybe I'd be allowed to buy just one sweet potato plant."

She smiled and said, "Which one do you want?"

"One that is well rooted."

She slipped the chosen one from the rubber band holding the others, carefully sprayed the roots with something, maybe water, maybe a growing solution, wrapped it in a paper napkin and handed it to me.

"How much?"

"Oh, it's a gift."

With much joy I walked out of the store almost as if I had been given a gold nugget. And that's what might grow in the pot, something that resembles a gold nugget. Maybe two.

I filled the pot with good rich soil, poked a hole in the center of the soil, slipped in the plant, watered it, closed the hole around the roots and sat down in the porch swing to smile at my attempt to test the efficiency of something previously untried so far as I know.

Naturally my thoughts turned to fields of sweet potatoes of yesteryear. Yes, fields. With three generations of us living together on the farm during the oncoming Depression, we leaned heavily on sweet potatoes and turnips, the Never-fails.

In a small pot, well, even a big pot, one can't very well shape the planting soil into ridges as did Grandpa and Dad in the field.

With horse and single plow share, long, long rows were made into miniature mountains, peaked as the Appalachians. Lou and I went down the rows with old broom handles, poking the just-right round holes, the just-right depth. Behind us came Grandma and Mama dropping the plants into the holes plants we had raised ourselves in the hotbed. Along came Grandpa and Dad after them, carrying big buckets of water, pouring a dipperful into each plant-occupied hole. Then back to the beginning rows to go down them again pressing the soil around the roots. We went five abreast this time. It was an agrinomical assembly line.

When, many years later, I saw Charlie Chaplin working himself silly on an assembly line in the movie, Modern Times, my thoughts went directly back to those sweet potato planting days.

In late summer Lou and I would go out to the sweet potato field with a big spoon to scrape away the soil where the potatoes had heaved upward, making deep cracks in the dirt. Sometimes we even carried a sharp knife along, and if we deemed a potato big enough, we spooned it up, scraped off the soil, peel it and ate it right there in the field.

Harvesting the potatoes was another family affair. Dad and Grandpa forked them up, the rest of us put them into bushel baskets.

Some of the potatoes were sold, but a sufficient number of them were washed, dried, individually wrapped in pieces of old newspapers and stored in the big long box-like affair that supported the tufted leather davenport.

The davenport could be pulled away from the wall and there, in the back, was access to the improvised potato bin, a cool, dry place as we had learned was the best for this storage. Only when company came was a fire built in this room. Seating themselves on the davenport they had no idea that several bushels of sweet potatoes were beneath them.

I wonder if my potato, or two, will crack the soil, heave it over the edge of the pot, showing the yellow side of something. If anything happens resulting in a potato, or two, I'll save them for Thanksgiving.

Now, if anyone, planting a bunch of what he or she thought contained fifty plants, comes up with only forty-nine, you're invited to my house for Thanksgiving, but bring along a dish. Maybe candied sweet potatoes, just in case.

REJOICE!