Doc and Dessie

Growing up, across the street lived an older couple who had never had children. They were visited occasionally by nieces and nephews. For the most part though they were loners, seemingly happy in their existence.

Doc worked at the Buick Factory across town and always drove a new Buick. Each year, shortly after the new models hit the showroom floor, he would order his new vehicle. Buicks at that time were land whales of cars. Long and big and heavy. We lived on a gravel road, yet I never saw his Buick with a speck of dirt on it.

Doc and my Father were friends. Not close friends, but the type that chatted when they saw each other out or came to visit if  a household's normal routine varied. My Father kept a small garden, made up of a few tomato plants and some cucumber plants. Doc always commented on the vegetables and Father shared them willingly with him.

The small house behind ours came up for sale and Father bought it. It included an extra lot. Our garden grew from a few rows, to a time consuming chore. Potatoes, peppers, squash, corn and peas sprouted in the new tilled land that first spring.

Impressed, Doc asked Father if he thought it was possible for him to grow such a harvest. Father encouraged him and offered his assistance in helping this city farmer along.

The next spring, Doc had his side yard plowed. Brought in black dirt and fertilizer to enrich the soil and planted his heart out. Watering each evening and weeding as needed, he soon had a garden plot any horticulturalist would envy. Blooms galore, turned into small fruit, waiting to evolve into succulent, satisfying food.

My Father, a jokester, could not resist playing a small joke on Doc. One evening after assuring Doc that his green tomatoes would indeed, given time, turn red, he visited the local A&P and bought a half bushel of red tomatoes.

That night after dark, he snuck into Doc’s garden and meticulously wired the purchased tomatoes onto Doc’s plants. 

The next evening, there was a loud and hard knock on our back door. It was Doc and he had gone out after supper to water, only to find his tomatoes had ripened overnight! He rushed Father across the street to see. Father, beaming along with the successful farmer, shared his praises and back slaps. They ‘picked’ a ripe one and cutting it in half, enjoyed the first spoils of Doc’s harvest.

Roy Richard
June 2024