Garden Fresh

I completely forgot yesterday was a Monday, so here we are today, with a little story from my morning.

As I was preparing to leave work today, an small elderly man comes in with a large woven basket.  I assumed he was there to rent or return a car, as people tend to do at my place of employment, but no…he truly had no business with us.  He explained he had just come to give us some tomatoes.

I looked at work-Mark for some sort of clue: was this a usual occurrence?  Had we rented to this man before?  Was this a thank you of some kind?  Work-Mark gave no indication of anything other than to say “oh yes, I think I remember you,” and then suddenly the man was handing us tomatoes.  Work-Mark went in back to get a box for them, and the old man asked if I enjoyed pears.  I replied that I do, because they are actually my favorite handheld fruit.  This gentleman starts talking about a pear tree that I assume he has in the garden with the tomato plants.  He then tells us the tomato plants came over from Italy, so they are Italian tomatoes (he himself had a heavy Italian accent, and I imagined him carrying tomato seeds in his pockets when he immigrated.)  Then he left, and I went about finishing my day, and five minutes later he was back again with his basket, now full of pears.  Work-Mark then tells me there is a pear tree on the Avis property, and this man was aware of it, apparently, so he picked me some pears. 

I thanked him, and wished him a nice day, and when he left, I turned to work-Mark with my questions, for which he had few answers.  Apparently, he is just an old man who lives on a farm and drives around handing out his produce.  I watched as this tiny elder climbed into the biggest Ford pickup I have ever seen and wondered what the hell just happened.  I watched him drive away, holding my box of produce.

I took some to my aunt and my grandma, and saved some for my dad, and tonight home-Mark gets a BLT for dinner with pears for dessert.  And I get a little story for my blog. 

Happy Tuesday.

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