It’s the little things…

Homegrown tomatoes. It doesn’t get better than that.

During our three years living in Houston, I couldn’t find a decent tomato to save my life. Nothing against the Lone Star state, -I can’t find decent tomatoes in California stores, either, -though they tend to hit closer to the mark.

Growing up, I was spoiled with homegrown tomatoes from Dad’s garden and in later years, my garden. I didn’t plant one in Houston. To be honest, I’m a wienie when it comes to insects. They say everything is bigger in Texas and that’s certainly true when it comes to pests. You can saddle and ride the bugs there. I didn’t want any more encounters with them than absolutely necessary, so I pretty much sequestered myself indoors and wrote.

It was time well spent when I published my first book.

While driving the two-thousand mile journey in our stuffed UHaul truck back to California, my husband and I discussed the things we missed most while living out of state. Among my items were tomatoes, avocados, and sweet white corn; -most produce in general. Dad used to tell me the fertile San Joaquin Valley could feed not only the entire country, but the better part of the world. Living in its epicenter as a child (Fresno, CA), I was blessed to have easy access to the ultimate harvest and though I recognized that fact to some extent, I didn’t fully realize it’s blessing until my access to the world’s finest produce was cut off.

Upon our arrival home, I was like a little kid on Christmas morning when my daughter showed up with a bag of home grown tomatoes fresh from her garden. I did a happy dance anticipating the many tomato sandwiches and BLT’s I’d soon be consuming, but in the larger scheme of things, those tomatoes reminded me of the message held in the book I’d been sent to Houston to write.

We pass things on from generation to generation consciously or not; -green thumbs, an unnatural love for garden fresh tomatoes, matters of faith, attitude, character, …important concepts as well as menial. Life is in the details; tons and tons of them strung together minute after minute, month after month, decade after decade.