Big Tomatoes

For many years I had been in competition with my brother-in-law in Portland in raising tomatoes. Big Tomatoes.

He was very good and regularly trounced me by raising huge beefsteaks using his secret fertilizer and some abra cadabra phrases, which he muttered by moonlight.

And my sister never did reveal his method, other than hint that he used to sometimes beg her to let him raise rabbits. Maybe he used the bunny banure.

Finally, I resorted to trickery and bought several monsters from a Seattle friend and knowing he and my sis were coming up cleverly tied them to one plant with extremely fine wire.

I knew when they were arriving so I was in the driveway next to my garden and was posed with a watering can as he drove up.

He looked over at me, spotted my twin monsters and leaped out of his car, his face ashen with concern and got on his knees and I assumed he would start bawling. He didn't.

He shouted," You double-dyed faker, I can see the fine wire you used."

He had me. Again,

So I gave up. And this year bet him on who could raise the first ripe one.

So I am sending him a picture with my entry of the first ripe one.

Just a little Squirt. But ripe.

Meet Rick Baumgart

Talk about small world.

This young man used to work for our company as a carrier boy. He lived in Federal Way and attended Thomas Jefferson High and the paper was the Federal Way News, which we founded.

He was 12 and he carried 200 papers and his boss was Jack Westerdahl, way back in the fifties.

He was quite an athlete, playing football, soccer and baseball until he broke his leg sliding into 3rd.

He is 56, married, has two boys and is an old car buff. He owns and restored a '35 Studebaker.

He lives in Tukwila but he likes shopping at the Burien Fred Meyer store.

It was his great moustache that caught my eye. Makes mine look anemic.

He is a truck driver but is currently unemployed.

Maybe he can get a job as the huskiest, handsomest paperboy in town.