Tomatoes!!

[jimk]

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Chorus:
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

And boy, have we got 'em this year! Just had me a big ol' BLT sandwich for lunch, and I'm singing this song.
JimK

[cjj]

We had the first BLT of the year yesterday for lunch! The tomatoes are just starting to get ripe...

[teb]

I used to fly one for a living. Big sucker, too! Like any occupation, it had its ups and downs.....

[beatlefreak]

You're not just giving us a lot of hot air, are you Todd?

[winston]

I used to fly one for a living. Big sucker, too! Like any occupation, it had its ups and downs.....

That was brilliant.

[cjj]

Hmm, I remember seeing that balloon back in the early '80s, even talked to a few of the pilots about it. Did you happen to ever fly it in Indiana?, Specifically, West Lafayette?

[jimk]

Word to the wise: Never greet a pilot with "Hi, Jack!"
I love home-grown tomatoes.
JimK

[teb]

CJ, Yes. We were based out of Champaign/Urbana but they would send us over to West Lafayette to fly once a month or so - more during football season to fly over the games. I worked for them between about 1979 and '82 or '83, first as a crew chief and the last couple years as a pilot. It's a fun way to expand your resume while actually going nowhere. My fondest memories of West Lafayette are actually of a chair...... One of the local volunteer crew people who used to help us out had this really cool 1970s chair in his apartment. It was like a big , white fiberglass egg with an oval hole cut in one side. You got in, sat down and just your legs stuck out the hole. Inside, it was really quiet and the interior was upholstered in some sort of red, fuzzy fabric. On one side it and had a small control panel that ran a couple of little reading spotlights and a totally kick-*** stereo system. The whole experience was about like being inside a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. I've always wanted one of those chairs and should probably watch for a restorable one on eBay.

My other favorite memory was one day when we were loading up at the warehouse in Champaign, getting ready to head to Lafayette. It was about 95 degrees and the air conditioner in the balloon van was broken, so we weren't looking forward to the 2+ hour trip. Suddenly, one of the owners of the pizza chain shows up pushing this cart with a huge blob (like 100 lbs.) of Italian sausage on it. It looked like a giant, uncooked hamburger, wrapped in a layer of handi-wrap. He said "Here, take this over to the Lafayette store, they're running out of sausage." We didn't have a cooler, so we just put it on the floor of the big Dodge van, in that space in front of the second seat and between the front buckets and we hit the road. If you ever rode in a full-sized dodge van for band stuff, you may have noticed that that section of floor is right over the transmission or something and gets really warm - but with the balloon and a bunch of propane tanks in the back, we didn't have any other place to put it. Two guys in a red van with a big green fiberglass tomato stem on top and a stinky 100 lb. Italian hamburger inside that was slowly cooking and likely in the process of becoming a serious bio hazard. Needless to say, it was a memorable trip and we avoided the sausage pizza for a while after that.

[jingle_jangle]

You sure know how to spin a yarn, Todd....

[libratune]

We have a big Oscar Meyer plant here in town and see the Wienermobiles frequently. Personally, I'm eating Ball Parks for a few weeks - at least long enough to be sure they've disposed of poor Oscar properly......

and

Two guys in a red van with a big green fiberglass tomato stem on top and a stinky 100 lb. Italian hamburger inside that was slowly cooking and likely in the process of becoming a serious bio hazard. Needless to say, it was a memorable trip and we avoided the sausage pizza for a while after that.

Close encounters with suspicious meat products seems to be a recurring theme . . .

[cjj]

Great stories Todd! There's a more than reasonable chance that we've actually met then. I was at Purdue during that time, and generally wandered down to see the Flying Tomato Brothers balloon most times it was in town. I did a lot of flying (airplanes) at the time, and thought balloons would be fun to try out sometime. Funny, I have yet to go up in a balloon. I don't fly much anymore either, it's just too expensive...

[doctorwho]

You sure know how to spin a yarn, Todd....

+1!

Interesting, too, because I was in grad school at the U of I starting in the fall of 1981.

I used to fly one for a living. Big sucker, too! Like any occupation, it had its ups and downs.....

I bet that the balloon payments weren't any fun, either!

[jingle_jangle]

[8mileshigher]

What a great thread !!!

[jimk]

What a great thread !!!

Yeah, whoddathunkit? Wonder what sort of responses there'd be to a thread all about the summer pleasures of sweet corn?
JimK