(May 27, 2010)  I am at Eden’s Department Store right on Fifth Avenue. Being from the country, I am thrilled to be in New York City for the first time. I certainly don’t mind waiting to get waited on. After all it was Milton who said, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

As I wait and I wait, I enjoy the gossamer beauty around me. The blues and golds and greens. The racks of satins in black. The place even smells good, like perfumes of France and gardens of amaryllis facing in opposite directions.

Durell Godfrey, Photographer

Finally I decide that I am doing something wrong, that maybe the local custom is to search out a clerk. So I poke around and end up at a mahogany desk, where I lean in hope that eventually a clerk will come by.

I notice the advertising brochures in multiple stacks, the papers on the desk with lots of red ink, the calculator with patterns of raised dots.

The phone on the desk starts its lullaby. After five rings, I begin to think that maybe I should answer it so I pick up the receiver and say, “Eden’s on Fifth.”

On the other end of the phone is an incensed man saying in no uncertain terms, “Eden’s! You screw up my credit card. You screw up my order. You screw up my delivery. You screw up my engagement. You ruin my life.”

“You have every reason to be angry,” I say to him empathetically.

“Angry?” he shouts, “My blood vessels are swelling. My heart is pounding.”

“Eden’s seems to be trouncing all your arteries, veins, and capillaries,” say I, adding, “all 62,000 miles of them.” I’ve noticed in life that statistics usually create a lull. Of course in reality there is only one statistic, either it will or it won’t.

After a momentary hush, I say, “My name is Evelyn. And what is your name?”

“Charlie Baker Able, I’m Charlie Baker Able.”

“Charlie Baker Able, I’m sure you are a very nice man however – ”

“I am not a nice man, I am an irate customer.”

“You must be disappointed in Eden’s,” I respond as I wonder why I sort of like this man. “Excuse me for saying so, sir, but maybe you shouldn’t think of Eden’s.”

“What kind of torturer are you?” he shouts.

My life experience in the country taught me that only one creature can be angry at a time. Even when a horse kicked me as I was nailing in his shoe, I let the horse be aggravated instead of me.

“I am one block from Eden’s on Fifth headed for a showdown with you and maybe I will stop thinking of Eden’s forever.” He continues, seemingly to himself, “Don’t think about Eden’s. . . . Think about anything else but don’t think about Eden’s.” He moans, “There it is.”

“Did you just think of Eden’s again?” I ask with concern about myself for feeling so connected to this impossible man.

“Every time I think of Eden’s,” he answers, “Eden’s gets stuck in my mind. My goal is not to think of Eden’s.”

Being a country girl, I am accustomed to getting tangled up messes, so I say, “Am I to understand that Eden’s on Fifth is the one thing you are trying to avoid and yet Eden’s keeps looping through your mind as your brain checks to see if you are making progress about not thinking of Eden’s?”

“Exactly,” he says.

I continue, “And yet the follow-up thought itself is about Eden’s?”

Contemplating, he says, “My mind keeps searching for whether or not I am thinking of Eden’s. Yes. That’s right.”

“Have you considered not monitoring whether or not you are thinking of Eden’s?” I continue. “You seem to be creating an Eden’s Table of Contents in your head.”

More than a little defensive, he adamantly says, “Quit telling me to quit thinking about how I think.”

“I am not trying to control your thinking. You are,” I say.

“I am searching for Eden’s in my head only to make certain it’s not there,” he says impatiently.

Calmly as when I trim a horse’s hoof so that it keeps its correct orientation to the ground I ask, “Why don’t you just think of Eden’s any time you want and not worry about checking to see if you have been thinking about Eden’s?”

“Why does it always snow in March and I end up talking with someone named Evelyn?”

I want to tell him that I respect our differences but instead I say, “Maybe your problem is that it is March, the Roman god of war, and you are at war with yourself.”

Furious he says, “Evelyn, dear, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

“Be a farrier,” I honestly reply.

“Ha. I should have guessed it. You there at Eden’s on Fifth. Of course you would dream of being a furrier. Ha.” he says.

“A farrier. You know. I want to shoe horses, balance the horse’s hoof, be a farrier,” I explain.

With a totally different tone in his voice, he asks, “Am I presently discussing the inner workings of my mind with a specialist in equine hoof care at Eden’s?”

I begin to wonder if the frenetic pace of the city affects people. Biting my lip I say, “And what do you want to do when you grow up?”

For whatever the reason, he says seriously, “I wanted to be a professional soccer player but I was not good enough and so I am stuck in advertising on Madison Avenue and this is my lunch hour and I am starving but instead of eating I am headed to Eden’s on Fifth to murder you.”

“In addition to working with horses, I also want to be a John Milton scholar but I don’t know if I am good enough,” I confess.

At the mention of Milton, Charlie Baker Able melts, saying, “I’ve memorized lines and lines of the poetry of Milton.”

Suddenly his whole tone changes and he simply asks, “Who are you?”

“Actually I am a customer who cannot get waited on and the phone started ringing so I answered the phone saying ‘Eden’s on Fifth.’ ”

“You what?”

“I came all the way up here to New York City to buy a gown for the beauty pageant but I can’t get waited on.”

For the first time, he says with interest, “What beauty pageant?”

I want to say, Now if I look good, you are interested so what else is new? but I answer, “The Maid of Cotton contest. I’ve found the most beautiful silk gown I’ve ever seen. With lace and pearls.”

“Go home. Now. Get out of there. Get yourself a gown made of rural cotton. If you buy that dress, misery will follow.”

I finally see a saleswoman, and I say, “Isn’t that odd, Charlie? The clerk has a walking cane.”

“Who?”

“Eden’s has redeemed itself. Regardless of our disability, we all have a role to play, we all have a place in the world.”

Incredulous he says, “Eden’s on Fifth hired someone with a walking cane?”

“She’s blind,” I say just at the moment when some foreign particles enter my nose. “Excuse me, I’m going to sneeze.”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“That dreadful clerk will enter your body and control you. What floor are you on? I’m coming to get you out of there.”

“The top floor,” I answer. For this man to care so much for a stranger, to connect so much with me, filled me with light. I wanted not to sneeze but I did.

“Gesundheit!” rattles the new hero Charlie Baker Able, “God bless you! I am on the way.” The phone clicks off.

The strikingly elegant clerk with her narrow body approaches slowly, meandering like a crawling wind, confidently interpreting the vibrations of the floor.

I begin to think about what Charlie said about rural cotton and I wonder why that is not good enough for me and why I have such unquestioned acceptance of silk and lace and pearls.

The clerk stops at an artificial tree to read something in Braille, and after many moments continues toward me but trips on a small round red object lying in the aisle.

Like a marble rolling on wood, the runaway apple rushes my way.

I hear a voice calling, “Evelyn, it’s me, Charlie.”

I turn around at the very moment that he kicks the firm ball of fruit into a net of accessories and scores with my heart as he approaches with Milton’s words, “Who best bear his mild yoke, they serve him best.”

Who knows why one person loves another? I don’t even know why tourists like me want to see, to visit, to be part of Eden’s. Does the attraction that causes me to gravitate to this historic building have the same power as the chemistry I feel that causes me to shift the grid through which I look at life the moment I hear Charlie Baker Able reciting, “His state is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed. . . .”

I search his eyes and feel that he has been with me forever and will always be as he continues, “And post o’er land and ocean without rest. . . .”

I smile at him and say, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Charlie touches my hand. “You gave me comfort when I was disappointed. I like you, Evelyn.”

I laugh, “Oh, yes, a principal goal in marriage I suppose.”

“What is?” he says.

“Mutual solace.”

“I don’t presume you would let me take you out to lunch?”

“Well, Charlie, that’s appropriate.”

“How so?”

“Because of the only two words in English that end in g-r-y.”

“And what’s that?”

“Angry and hungry.” As we walk toward the elevator, I touch the silk gown, “This is the dress that I will never wear.”

“Nor will my ex-fiancée,” he says sheepishly. “Didn’t you wonder why the operator put me through to the Bridal Department?”

And that’s how I met my husband, Charlie Baker Able.

Durell Godfrey, Photographer

When they sent me the picture, I was dumbfounded by reality. I had to lose weight, to get small again. That very day my dog, whose name is Ralph, and I ate less.

The diet was going fine until the afternoon walk, at which time Ralph found chicken bones, crab claws recently pecked, a deer carcass, and paper tissue, all of which he ate. It was as if the universe were sending out false food, sort of like the Federal Reserve printing out more money.

I had made the mistake of securing potato chips in a glass container to keep them fresh but I could see through the glass. I was looking right at the potato chips knowing that they were the enemy, knowing all that salt would blow me up. I tried to convince myself that if I didn’t actually think of them as potato chips it was permissible to eat them.

My left hand opened the jar not knowing that the right hand would put potato chips in my mouth. When one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, the physical body will pay.

I grew to twice the size I used to be. Looking in the mirror I wondered from where the other half came. When I was in my 20s, I was tiny. I roomed with a New York City Ballet dancer who put a heavy lock on the refrigerator. Balanchine was the name of her boss and Balanchine liked small heads, long legs, and very skinny bodies. So I had the key to the lock.

In order to make myself breakfast, I had to unlock the lock then unloop the heavy chain that wrapped around the refrigerator two complete times and then some. After getting the refrigerator door open, I took out bread, jam, and an egg. I then looped the chain around the refrigerator twice and locked the lock.

I started to make breakfast but realized I forgot the butter. So I unlocked the lock and unlooped the chain, got the refrigerator door open, took out the butter, then looped the chain around the refrigerator twice and locked the lock.

Even with the chain and lock, my roommate was still getting too much food, not unlike Ralph. What I learned from this experience was that you cannot put a fence around the kitchen or a guard beside the dog bowl. The calories always cross the border. They are everywhere. In the summer they dig the garden into my stomach. In the winter they shovel the snow into my mouth. Who knew that snow created a flurry of overeating.

Everything got too big, not just Ralph and me. I don’t know when it happened. It just sneaked up on us. The woman down the street used to sew but then the store on the corner started selling dresses. Then the big manufacturers came and they manufactured clothes for the whole world. The woman down the street doesn’t sew anymore and the store on the corner got squeezed out by the big manufacturers who then got eaten alive by the cheap labor of world manufacturers who now manufacture clothes for us.

“How can you be a military power and you can’t even make your own uniforms?” says Claudio, the scientist half of the Colorado couple. I always telephone him when I need valorous insight. I listen to him because he had the courage to marry my roommate the bulimic ballet dancer who still is very thin, still looks 24, still can defy time and space, still goes by the stage name Henrietta.

Quietly, with the air of a discredited diva, Henrietta grabs the phone and says to me, “Fortunately I like everything oversized.” I never know for certain if she is following the conversation or merely displaying her passion. If you could get into her head, you would probably find that she was thinking romance, remembering long ago luring Claudio the bachelor backstage night after night when the theater was empty.

Back then the two of them were quite the item – she with her long auburn hair, green eyes, curled smile, and Claudio with his thick hairy body crowned with black waves. Sitting next to him at the ballet I would always notice the stroking of the mustache as his searching brown eyes followed Henrietta’s flight across the wide Lincoln Center stage. Her disregard for gravity caused his thick bushy eyebrows to rise over his horn-rimmed glasses. I knew this was an affair of the heart that would last.

When Henrietta begins retelling the small triumphs and large miseries of her dancing career (most of which are a figment of the imagination), Ralph returns from a marrow-bone-gnawing ecstasy to rescue me from the phone. He and I look at each other and know that eating is imminent.

In the minutes that follow I make notes for each amount that Ralph and I are allowed. I organize 23 possible portion ideas on four pieces of paper but Ralph eats them all then looks at me as if to say, “I don’t want to hear it, just feed me.”

I say to Ralph, “My duty is to obstruct the power of my hunger and your hunger.”

He looks at me as if he agrees.

I continue, “Ralph, what will become of a country where responsibility is nonexistent and greed is all-encompassing?”

He nods yes. Ralph and I see eye to eye. Relations between me and my dog are unproblematic but relations between me and my truck-driver appetite have never been easy.

Claudio always says that when you get older you either blow up or dry up. I wonder if my fate was spelled out the moment I was given the key to the refrigerator.

My dog sort of tells me in an anthropomorphic way not to worry about it, that we will shrink in time. He and I walk outside into the embrace of the night. After sniffing the ground searching for food, he looks up and studies the harvest moon then sits, throws his head backward, and, with great authority, does a long cello foghorn howl.

Ralph died small. He got cancer and struggled for 10 months. I struggled for him and with him. We both lost a lot of weight. We loved each other, fat or thin.

Half of a moon is in the sky. I look up and wonder where the other half went.

The last thing I said to Ralph was, “The hole in my heart is going to be too big.”

Someday Henrietta on a harvest moon will dance toward Claudio while I sit next to Ralph who is playing a cello as we watch from a star.

Durell Godfrey, Photographer

Her perfumed frame is long and angular with blond hair loosely tied from off her neck. Her feet and head are all that you can see. A floor-length mink is covering her up.

Blue eyes, full lips, a singular bold chin that says hard-headed woman right up front. You’d think she’d take charge of most anything if confidence were not just her facade.

She’s deep and layered like a warm June sky. Who would not want to be with, talk with her? But as she saunters toward the private plane the only conversation she is in, is with the parrot on her shoulder bone.

The parrot’s name is Hero and he’s mad ’cause she adopted him reluctantly and he belonged to someone who just died, someone they both do love with all their hearts.

Her multicolored leather shoulder bag contains a paper bag that holds a flask. She notices that Hero blends in well and at the moment feels quite fond of him.

But no one knows what Hero will do next so when the muscular male airport cat runs straight across the floor in front of them, should she have guessed that Hero would shout out, “Here kitty kitty, here here kitty cat”?

The cat turns round and goes into a crouch. On Hero’s beak she quickly lays her hand. She tries to silence him before the pounce. The cat is wiggling hips from side to side. He’s warming up before his planned attack.

Unluckily for her, the parrot bites, offended that someone would muzzle him. Wide-eyed she stands immobile and in shock. The cat just saunters off without a care.

Some blood is dripping to the airport floor. She swabs her finger with her handkerchief then wipes the black and white ceramic tile. The St. Bernard embroidered on her cloth gets dirty red with one more wipe as does the brandy barrel worn around his neck.

As she cleans up the floor, she soon finds out that blood has splattered on a hearing aid, the type that rests behind the ear and has a mold that fits inside the ear canal. She takes the hearing aid to Lost and Found then briskly walks off toward the exit door.

She tells her charter pilot what she found. His name is Cayley and he turns to her, “Most folks don’t like to listen just talk talk.” The parrot parrots him and squawks, “Talk talk.”

At great expense Amanda booked this flight for business reasons. Now she finds herself with Hero and the man as they approach a sparkling plane that’s red and blue and white.

The pilot taps the outside fuselage. He taps three times most gently uttering, “Hey you tin can, you beautiful tin bird.” He taps as if he’s knocking on a door to ask if he can get on board the plane.

He sets his left foot first onto the wing and tells her to be careful of her heels. “Amanda is your name I think they said. Co-pilot’s seat is here if you would like. I’m Cayley,” he says as he puts on gloves.

He pats the photograph that’s in his shirt. He thinks his wife and children keep him safe. These rituals are part of who he is, a man who loves to fly, who lives to fly.

The engine sound is loud but Cayley speaks. He does his monologue each time he flies. He tells the passengers about the plane and how to operate the radio. Confused and nervous, passengers just smile as if they understand what Cayley said. The parrot in his cage is smiling, too.

A soft take-off and Cayley starts to sing about his world, the world of piloting, the connotations of – of bravery, adventure, and connection with the stars.

He smoothly rolls the airplane to the right. The wing with lowered aileron goes up, the wing with high raised aileron drops down. He points out haystacks in an open field, straw soldiers in a line in perfect form. He thinks how natural and how so right.

As if his heart were pushing him along, like engines on airplanes give thrust for flight, he feels a weight that’s beating him down hard, a force that seems to pull him back to earth. He sets the plane on auto-pilot fast.

Sir Isaac Newton comes into his mind. His heart is pumping out the motion laws, how objects move much faster when they’re pushed, how he’s been working 15-hour days.

He tears a glove off and his hand contracts. Control is gone and now his hand’s a claw. His body jerks and jolts and shakes until his seat becomes dislodged and he ends up unconscious in the back seat of the plane.

To no avail Amanda tries to help. She takes her coat and lays it over him. She feels herself collapsing, panting hard. Her heart is palpitating and she’s scared. Her trembling hands take out the paper bag. She breathes into the bag to stabilize. She counts each breath and then she starts to hum.

The plane begins to turn. She tilts her head to look at all the instruments above, then tilts her head straight down to look at charts. She feels she’s rolling, tumbling down a hill. She quietly moans “Help,” but no one’s there.

She watches fuel level going down. She watches cognac level going down. “I want my mother,” she begins to cry and call out to her mother who just died.

“I want my mother,” Hero echoes her then puffs up feathers like he’s feeling strong. He loudly parrots what the pilot said, announcing how to work the radio, “You press the button on the mike to talk.”

Amanda stares at him in disbelief but follows his directions word for word. The radio starts working, and she screams, “Help, help, we need your help!” And Hero shrieks, “Help help!” but only static comes their way.

No one responds. Amanda feels defeat. She cries out, “It’s no use, no use at all.”

But from the radio a Southern voice is heard, “Who is in charge there of the plane?”

Emotional Amanda speaks so fast, “How comforting that someone is out there because in here we have a parrot with clipped wings, a woman who is drunk, a pilot who is comatose.”

The old man says, “Your feelings, Ma’am, I truly understand but now the situation calls for something else, maybe a bit of reason, Ma’am. The pilot, can he offer any help?”

“The pilot can’t talk to himself much less to me.”

The old man patiently responds, “Well, if we have a plane without a pilot trained and certified, we’ll need some creativity.”

“Not me,” she quickly says.

“No one will bail you out, Ma’am, but yourself. You’re very near so you can circle round a couple times to get you used to it. They say you should not pilot any plane if you don’t have an interest in flight,” the old man calmly adds, “But my dear friend -”

“The only flying high that gives me thrill is flying high that comes out of a flask.”

“This is your day, you’re of the day not of the night. There is a time to sleep but now is not that time.” He adds, “The pilot must have coffee in his bag.”

“These knobs and stuff in front of me. . . . My hands are shaking so,” she mutters, pouring coffee for herself.

He lets her know what speed that she should go and where to find the various controls. “I’ll guide you down the runway,” he declares.

“Oh sure,” she argues as she freezes up.

“The way I see it, Ma’am, believe in me or you can be just bones. It’s in your interest and mine to get this plane on ground. We are in harmony.”

He teaches her but she falls short. She glances at her flask, “Give up on me, give up.”

“I never cast off anyone, I only try to help.”

Amanda looks down at the ground and sees a pointing crowd. She asks, “Those people, who are they?  What makes you think I won’t hit them?”

“I telephoned the hospital for help.”

Frustrated she exclaims, “My pilot here should take care of this plane without an effort on my part.”

The radio voice says, “You work real hard and you eat your own bread. You fly this plane and you save your own life. Rely on me. You can. I promise you,” he adds, “Now here we go, let’s take her down.”

The ambulance’s crew, the curious, and one newspaperman are on the ground, all watching her descend but then ascend. She circles back, descends again, but then she pulls up and she tries once more. The plane goes down the runway to a bouncing stop before a row of trees.

The old man says, “Congratulations, Captain, yes, well done.”

Amanda says, “I may be wobbly but I land on solid ground.”

“Sometimes you must descend in order to ascend,” he says. The radio goes click, “Over and out.”

“Wait, wait, don’t go,” she pleads while Hero squawks.

Now everyone comes rushing to the plane.

The pilot’s carried off, a stretcher under him. He’s groggy but he looks at them. “We think you had a grand mal seizure and she landed her with help from the old man. It seems the parrot was most helpful, too.” The siren blares, the ambulance is gone.

Amanda is so grateful for her life, she walks back to the fuselage then taps three times and says, “I love you dear tin bird.”

The young reporter runs until he catches her, exclaiming, “You forgot your coat.”

She throws the mink across her arm, says, “Thanks. Where is the man who taught me how to fly?”

“He’s helping someone somewhere else,” he adds, “You’ve made the news, would you give me a quote?”

“The only problem auto-pilot has, eventually you run out of fuel.” Walking by a wastebasket she tosses in her flask.

He asks, “Well, Hero, what’s your comment for today?”

“You save the plane, you save yourself,” he squawks, “You save yourself, you save the plane.”

An aircraft lands and drowns them out.

Durell Godfrey, Photographer

I was blessed with a small piece of land in Long Island where happy potatoes grow. I started out small but my bounty grew and grew. Sometimes I believe my good luck began on that morning when into my life arrived an Iraqi refugee and then at sunset a homeless American.

I remember the chilly evening when the tall bearded American appeared at my gate. He was disoriented and afraid. His job did not pay enough for a roof over his head and his cardboard box had been discovered.

I invited him in to have dinner with me and my other indigent saint, who happened to be an Iraqi refugee. How was I to know it was most profitable to dine with indigent saints?

The homeless American, the Iraqi refugee, and I sat down to large bowls of potato soup and tall glasses of milk with a side of fried potato skins.

The refugee from Baghdad had fled to Damascus, from Damascus to the United States, and had ended up in Long Island and at my dinner table for the reason that Fate never makes much sense. He had worked in the Green Zone for an American company and Al Qaeda did not like that so they killed his brother because Al Qaeda thought mistakenly it was he. They also killed his father. The potato was cultivated 4,000 years ago but so far we have been unable to cultivate peace.

The moist waxy American homeless man, the dry mealy Iraqi homeless man, and I discussed important food crops, the potato being one.

The American homeless man noted that the poor are the principal consumers of potatoes. The Iraqi homeless man noted that the potato is the most important vegetable in the world. I noted that if you depend on potatoes for a living, you must admit to yourself the potential hazards of blight, inclement weather, imperfect storage.

I told them to eat as much as you like. I thought to myself, “I consider what has been done to you has been done to myself.”

The American had been a sound engineer in Hollywood before the show went off the air. The Iraqi had been an environmental engineer in Baghdad before the country that he knew went off the map.

I said to them, “I’ll give you room and board and some of the profit if we can make a profit out of a potato farm.”

They happily agreed to be the sound engineer and the environmental engineer for my potato farm.

The first thing the Iraqi environmental engineer did was round up all the old stones in the field and design a welcoming path to the world. He drove stakes into the ground and tied string to the stakes and measured and thought and designed and sweated and made the most beautiful winding path I have ever seen.

The first thing the American sound engineer did was to rig up some nice music for my four chickens, one pig, and one dairy cow. It was the most beautiful music I have ever heard. The animals thrived.

We then prepared the ground for the potatoes. The American did the plowing once. The Iraqi did the plowing once. Then I did a little of the third plowing. Being older and in questionable health, I was mostly in charge of cooking, administration, and the weather. I did the latter job well and provided enough water with all the rain.

Also I put myself in charge of root-weeds. I detest root-weeds. Potatoes detest root-weeds. So I was diligent in eliminating them, much to the satisfaction of the crop. Generally speaking the potatoes were quite content. It is my belief that their contentment made them prolific.

Being in charge of the weather, I made sure to get ahead of the heavy frost, the archenemy of the potato. I don’t want bruising. I don’t want rotting. I want undamaged potatoes taken out of the ground before they look at me and say, “Br-r-r, we’re too cold.”

On the exactly right day, my hands reach down into the ground and pull out delicate young tubers, carefully leaving the plant in place. The American and Iraqi and I have these new potatoes for dinner, at which time we discuss spading forks – the smooth long handle, the three prongs. I tell them that I can look at a spading fork and know it is time to unearth potatoes and to get in touch with the earth.

To dig up potatoes the American and the Iraqi first used a plow. The more successful we became, the more sophisticated the equipment became. Eventually they scooped up potatoes with a huge potato harvester. Choppers, shakers, blowers. All kinds of mechanical equipment to separate the potatoes from the dirt.

The American drove the wagon with the harvested potatoes, the Iraqi helped put the potatoes into storage, and I milked the cow. And I made dinner. And when I made dinner it always included potatoes: boiled potatoes mashed with fresh milk and butter, baked potatoes with sour cream, with the skin, without the skin, whole or diced, hot potatoes or cold potato salad, French-fried potatoes, dumplings, pancakes. The smell permeated the air.

Soon buyers followed their nose. Then they followed their eyes, drawn to the enchanting winding stone path. Then they piped their ears into the music as they touched the wooden gate and expectantly walked into our world.

Not only were we selling potatoes but we traded one chicken for a pig, then the pig thrived and we traded the pig for a cow. Then another cow and another. Bought another field. Grew more potatoes.

People started buying potatoes for reasons that went beyond our imagination. One scientist was doing a study about starch that is resistant to getting digested in the stomach and moves right along into the large intestine. He was so into resistant starch that his pharmaceutical increased our wealth twofold.

Following him were the woman who said that potatoes reduce fat storage, the doctor who said potatoes protect his patients from colon cancer, and the glucose tolerance people, and insulin sensitivity people.

When I look back at my life as a potato farmer I always see a couple of potato eyes looking back at me, and I smile as I think of planting just a piece of potato in a little mound of dirt.

Many years have passed, many abundant harvests reaped. The Iraqi has gone safely home. The American has built a home and a life for himself. As for me, I have been blessed with no potato beetles or blights and only indigent saints.