A pipe dream

I'm tied up working on some news for The Packer today so I haven't devoted my normal energy to the blog scanning the WWW for news of interest. Therefore, I'm running my column that was published in the March 30 edition of The Packer...


The other day I was collecting the mail with the usual mix of anticipation and dread when I discovered my son had sent me a package. I happily and correctly suspected this book-sized box from Nashville was a belated birthday gift. I'm not sure how those of you with grown-up sons and daughters feel, but I always regard a birthday (or Christmas) gift from my three kids totally unnecessary. It is enough that they are being productive citizens out there in the world (and not still under my roof) -- and remember me with a phone call. So getting a package from Brian was a treat, and I wondered what he might have thought to get me on the occasion of my 50th birthday. That's right, the big 5-0, the birthday that marks the occasion of the "Welcome, you are one of us" letter from AARP, the legendary precipice of mid-life crisis, the foreboding, more than halfway home sense that it's "all downhill from here." I must say, though, my 50th was nothing of the sort. Just another candle (now one candle for every 10 years, of course), another German chocolate cake made from scratch by my wonderful wife, Sally. Just another number. I managed to ignore the inclination for introspection. Back to the package … I set it on kitchen table and ripped open the brown paper wrapping. After additional moments of pulling and bending the stubborn cardboard box, I discovered Brian had sent me a classic "coming of age" gift -- a Mac Baren pipe with accompanying packages of vanilla cream and cherry ambrosia pipe tobacco, along with the obligatory pipe cleaners. Though I have never smoked, I was delighted with the gift and gave him a call right then to express my approval. Later that evening, I gave the pipe its first trial, striking about eight matches in the garage to set afire a bit of vanilla cream tobacco I had inexpertly thumbed into the pipe. Once the pipe was lit, amateur hour began. In the end, I think the idea of having a pipe may be more satisfying than actually smoking it. In that respect, I will draw a comparison with my pipe experience to the White House vegetable garden that first lady Michelle Obama helped christen March 20. My thought is the idea of a vegetable garden at the White House may be more alluring than the reality of it. There is no denying the White House vegetable garden is a produce-related presidential phenomenon unlike any we have seen. Let's face it, the most publicity the industry has received from the White House was when George Bush 1.0 said he hated broccoli, thus prompting (as my recollection goes) a load of broccoli to be shipped to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Though there have been vegetable gardens at the White House before, it was decades ago, in the shadow of World War II. Now, like apparently everybody else in the country, the Obama's will try their hand at being green thumbs. The upside for fruit and vegetable advocates seems huge with the White House "Victory Garden." Did you happen to see the first lady lead grade-school children at the garden ceremony in cheers for fruits and vegetables? "Let's hear it for fruits!" Wee! "Let's hear it for vegetables!" Yeah! One industry lobbyist remarked to me that political appointees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- a skeleton crew at this point, admittedly -- are sure to take notice of such a strong message from the person who is closest to President Obama. Will the reality match the hype? Will the vegetable garden be lost and forlorn in a few months? Will the Obama family lose interest in tending the veggie patch when D.C. heats up? The garden will be fine, and probably the best-run backyard plot ever. Beyond the full force and power of the executive branch landscaping crew, Michelle Obama promised when she put shovel to ground that the garden would be weeded by all the first family, including Barack himself. She may have been joking, but I have no doubts that Michelle Obama could motivate Barack Obama to do just about anything she wants him to. What are the down sides? Not many. Of course, opinion writers have already penned thoughts like, "Do we really want the leader of the free world tending the White House vegetable garden?" If "we" are the produce industry, we certainly do. If I want to dream a little, I will imagine that the White House will give me access to the vegetable garden when I make my next trip to Washington, D.C. While there, I will interview the first lady and see how her garden of some 58 plants grows. I may get a photo opportunity of plucking a tomato with President Obama that will be splashed over the front page of The Packer. I know, it's a pipedream. And I have one of those already. E-mail tkarst@thepacker.com