A Strawberry Statement

I can hardly wait for the end of the profit-motive culture, and that way of running things.  Not only for a move to a more natural way of dealing with health issues, e.g. (from the current system, whereby the medical profession - actually, the medical-pharmaceutical complex; more actually, the medical-pharmaceutical-government complex - is paid to keep us coming to them, and the more, the better - for them).  But for a return to better-tasting strawberries.

When I was a kid, my (older) brother and I used to be shipped up to northern California - actually, the San Francisco Bay area - from our home in the southern part of the state for the summers, to spend them with our paternal grandparents (I'm sure to give our mom - recently divorced from her second husband - a break from us as much as to allow contact with that side of the family).  Grandpa Stanfield was a farmer, born and bred, and had taken his love of the land, and that way of living, with him into the City, when the economic realities changed and it was harder for small farmers to make a go of it.  His penchant for growing things, and that way of life, was in abundant evidence all around their house: they not only had a backyard 'kitchen garden', of lettuce and cucumbers and the like (which Grandma kept a trained eye on, when she wasn't baking all kinds of goodies), but he had taken over the plot of land behind theirs, and was growing in it all manner of things.  I remember in particular the rows and rows of corn - if not as high as an elephant's eye, pretty close (especially to a small boy).  And between the field - looking a little incongruous, in the middle of a town - and the house, there was a row of rabbit hutches and a chicken run; both of which provided manure for the garden, as well as food directly for the family.

And the curb section, running the length of the house, was planted not with grass, but with strawberries.  Little strawberries.  Delicious strawberries.  Especially with cream...

Two follow-ups to this memory.  The first is from many years ago now, in this, my hometown area (which I have come back to, in my 'golden years'), when a story was reported on, in both the daily paper and on TV news, about a 'grower' - he was not really a farmer; at least not like of old; at least not like my grandfather - who was not able to sell a whole big field of strawberries for more than it had cost him to grow them, and, in fact, for a lot less.  I forget the details; whether Big Ag had wiped out the little guy - yet again; or, more likely, just an ongoing story - or there was either a momentary or a chronic glut on the market, with strawberries able to be brought in from Mexico far cheaper, even with the transport costs factored in,  Whatever the specific facts in the instance, the mainstream media allowed him his day in the court of public opinion, as he then, the next day, plowed under all his hard work in front of the cameras.

A sad sight.  A sad day.  But it seemed - another vignette of Life In Our Times - the way things, simply, were.  Nothing to be done about it.

The second follow-up is from yesterday (at the time of this writing), when I browsed through a weekly street market in downtown Long Beach.  I have gone to it a couple of time, now; and bought a loaf of bread direct from the bakery the first time (although Walmart sells it for less than I paid for it; another sign of the times), and some cherries and carrots direct from two different farms the next.  And this time, a number of the farm stalls were selling strawberries.  Big strawberries.  I was a little too quick on the draw, and bought a 3-pack for $5 when, further on, another farmer's stall had theirs (they all looked the same) for $4 for a 3-pack.  But that's not what I really want to report on.  What I really - really - want to report on, is the taste.

I don't know what they're serving at Wimbledon these days, but these over here are ridiculous.*

I understand the economics of the matter.  Including the fact that when years ago, Hugo Chavez & co. were agitating for more wages to be paid to agricultural workers, the growers - caught in between them and 'the market' - started developing machinery to do the picking, which in turn required a hardier type of produce.  Tomatoes with thicker skins.  And strawberries - obviously - capable of being grasped more easily, by metal fingers.  But, really...

Little farmers.  Little strawberries.  Gone the way of the world.

But - you never know.  Life can be full of surprises, sometimes.

Little ones.

And big ones.

Big, big ones.

Really big ones.

And then maybe we can get back to matters of good taste.

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* As John McEnroe would say:; "You've got to be kidding!"

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P.S.  I have realized that most people in this generation won't know the pun involved in my titling of this blog.  Briefly: In the late 60s, when opposition to the Vietnam War was building on American campuses into a full-fledged revolutionary movement, creating the likes of the Students for a Democratic Society and its Weathermen faction spin-off, one of those students thus radicalized wrote a book about his experiences during that time, in which he remarked how some very Establishment types, connected with David Rockefeller, were trying to 'buy themselves a revolution' by bankrolling the action at Columbia University in New York City.  He titled his book 'The Strawberry Statement,' after a Columbia U administrator told the radicals that if they didn't have reasonable suggestions, their opinion mattered no more to him than if a majority of the students liked strawberries.   The book was later turned into a rather fictionalized version of the real story of that time on that campus; but the expression took into the psyche of the time.