There is an old country song that I like to hear, it’s John Denver singing, ” Two Things That Money Can’t Buy, True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes”, a person can consider themselves Blessed if they ever have either one. Lately I have taken to leaving the garden with a fat, red tomato in hand, heading for the kitchen and lunch. I can’t think of a faster or easier lunch than a tomato sandwich, the tomato still warm from the Sun. People have fooled around with them for years trying to improve what can’t be made better. The simplicity is part of the joy. Two pieces of white sandwich bread, best on Sunbeam if you have it, mayonnaise, salt and pepper. Cut a thick slice from the middle of your tomato, slap some mayonnaise on the bread, position the tomato in the center, salt and pepper to taste, put on the lid. Holding it carefully between two hands, carry it to the back porch and eat it thoughtfully as you survey the coming afternoon. Your first homegrown tomato sandwich will be the very best one of the year, you’ll tell the neighbors about it, casually bring it up at the grocery store while standing in line, let the lady where you buy your books in on it. Oh, yes, it’s called bragging, but it is also a fact that wants to be known.
You can’t buy a homegrown tomato, you might can purchase one raised by someone else, but your own takes a certain amount of planning and yes, work. When you set that baby plant in the ground, you are already planning that sandwich. This is called delayed gratification, you are going to have to wait for it. The love and care you lavish on that plant will be your reward later, that delicious sweet tanginess in your mouth could be called gratitude, you’re so glad you did just this one little thing, you planted that plant. Towards the end of Summer you will most likely grow a little tired of them, the first twenty or so will take the edge off your craving, and it’s time to either start freezing or canning for the winter soups and sauces. First loves and tomato sandwiches have several things in common. There is excitement, sweetness, and anticipation of something marvelous about to happen. You know it won’t last forever but you don’t care, it’s what you want and you want it now, all the goodness, all the joy, all messiness that comes with both. You know there will be other loves, and other sandwiches but not now, not right now, this is the one you’ve been waiting for, the one they sing songs about. Well, I’ve only heard one song about homegrown tomatoes, but you get my drift. There is certainly one thing that is a major difference, while you have to work for the tomato, true love can only be a gift. You can’t make it happen, you can’t work hard enough to make it bloom, you can’t take it by force or manipulation. It is a Gift, sweet and pure, given by God through another person, or perhaps through yourself. There is not enough gold in the World to buy a First True Love and while the years may tarnish some memories and possessions grow old and photographs fade, that first love remains as a shining light in your heart. You can always grow another Homegrown Tomato, there will only be one First True Love.
There is another measure of True Love that I always remember: Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it doesn’t boast. It is not proud, it doesn’t dishonor others. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love doesn’t delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Corinthians 13: 4-8
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August 29, 2012 at 12:37 pm
Laurie Buchanan
Sandi – Excuse me a moment while I put on a bib after reading your mouth-watering description of eating a big, fat, juicy, homegrown tomato!
I can’t believe you just said, “The simplicity is part of the joy.” I just now…just before heading over here…submitted a short piece for a series titled “Simplicity in Action.” Great minds do, indeed, think alike.
You put a face-splitting grin on my mug with your wonderful depiction of the similarities (and differences) between home grown tomatoes and first love.
And of course you wrapped it up beautifully with a passage from Corinthians 13, the love chapter.
Well done. Exceedingly well done. My garden hat is off to you!
August 29, 2012 at 12:41 pm
denniscoulter
I remember when I was a young boy, maybe nine or ten. There was a tree fort built high up in an old oak tree. It was on the edge of our school yard. I went there when I wanted to be alone and just think things over. I could see my house about a half a mile away. Between us were hundreds of oak and maple trees. One day, as I was looking out over the expanse, I noticed something. The trees by my house would begin to bend as the wind pushed through their leaves. And I thought, “I can see the wind,” and I watched it as it rolled across the treetops until finally, it brushed against my face. There things that touch us that will stay fresh in our memories forever. They are pure and clean like the breath of God as He leans close to us and says. “I am here, and I will never leave you.” Memories are not dreams; they really happened. Like the wind, you can’t see from where it came or where it went, but when it touched you, it was real.
August 29, 2012 at 1:44 pm
Kathy
Sandi, what a wonderful post you’ve written here! I am half-tempted to go out and get a tomato from our garden right now. Aren’t they the most precious globes of sweet ripeness this time of year?
September 2, 2012 at 8:08 am
Barbara Kass
Well, Sandi, I can honestly say that I agree 1000% that a homegrown vine-ripened tomato is a hundred times tastier than anything I have ever bought in a grocery story. We did not have a bumper crop this year and your description made me come close to sneaking over to the neighbor’s yard under cover of the midnight sun and doing them the favor of relieving them of a few of their near-ripe tomatoes. But then you had to go and spoil those plans with this stuff about love and my conscience said “you can’t do that.” So, here I sit . . . tomatoless . . . but full of memories of last season’s feast and in anticipation of next year’s crop.
October 24, 2012 at 2:04 pm
Fergiemoto
Yum – your post made my mouth water! I grew up on a crop farm and tomatoes were a staple crop for us – acres and acres of tomatoes! There is nothing like standing in the middle of a tomato field with a salt/pepper shaker and eating a ripe tomato right off the vine. To this day, I have to have tomatoes in my garden. It tastes so much better. Store bought ones just don’t have any flavor.
January 10, 2013 at 4:46 am
Lunar Euphoria
🙂 this was posted on my birthday. Home grown tomatoes are the best.
January 13, 2013 at 11:59 am
Kathy
Are you still eating canned tomatoes from your garden, Sandi? 🙂
April 19, 2013 at 9:39 am
Kathy
I am always coming by here, leaving invisible footprints in your garden–OK maybe you might see them–just to see if you’ve written another blog, Sandi!
June 13, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Colleen
Sandi, I’m back to read again and to pay homage to one of the most delicious things on this planet, homegrown tomato sandwiches. It won’t be long now, they’re almost ripe!
July 31, 2013 at 9:52 am
Barbara Rodgers
Sandi, reading your post brings back so many pleasant memories of my father’s homegrown tomatoes. They tasted so good it pains me when I have to buy one in the store. The only tomatoes that come close in flavor are the ones we sometimes buy from local farmers. Still, to have one warm off the vine – do I ever miss that!
August 4, 2015 at 1:59 am
marianbeaman
I came to your blog via our mutual friend Laurie Buchanan today. I grew up in a tomato patch (5 acres) in Lancaster County, PA as a plain Mennonite girl. I now live in the city where I sometimes (gasp!) have to buy hot-house tomatoes.
Your charming writing style drew me in, Sandi!