Tomato Man, Bill, is a gentleman in a wheelchair who is helped by his brother, John, to achieve tomato-growing stardom every year.
TOMATOES @ 76: An Ode to Tomato Man, Bay City's Hero on Walnut Street
August 11, 2013
By: Dave Rogers
Looking back over 76 years, a milestone I reached today, what do I think about?
Tomatoes.
Yup, tomatoes.
In 1947 when I escaped the boarding school after five years of relative incarceration singing in Latin every morning at 5:30, tomatoes were one of my first joys.
Growing up near the Beutel Canning Company we river-rats, as we called ourselves, headed for the fields stretching east from the cannery to the river.
Barrels of pickles sat on wooden horses curing in brine. Nearby were baskets of tomatoes as far as the eye could see, waiting to be made into ketchup I suppose.
Solidly red, plump, round succulent tomatoes with the distinctive Michigan tang not found anywhere else. You remember?
Later I learned the world's largest lumber mill of Henry Sage and John McGraw had been on that site in the previous century. Now it was the world's largest tomato basket and pickle curing storing field, or something like that. Economic development based on pickles and tomatoes had set in after all the trees were gone.
Beutel's had so many tomatoes they discarded ones that didn't measure up to their world-class standards. Those baskets were set aside as an attraction for young boys playing near the river.
Many of the rotten tomatoes still had a good bite or two in them; if you were careful just to eat the good part, and we became experts at that as well as connoisseurs of what made a good tomato.
Now, what you get at the supermarket today is usually the Florida or Georgia tomato, grown by a large corporation. Even the Amish tomatoes grown in hoophouses in the Thumb are among life's greatest disappointments to a tomato connoisseur of 76 years.
It struck me that there is a life lesson to be learned from tomatoes; the ersatz tomatoes undermine one's faith in humanity.
Why?
Because anyone who would sell a great-looking tomato that has no taste is, well, despicable.
It is false advertising.
It is corporate deception in pursuit of unwarranted profits.
It probably is unconstitutional.
There is no warning like on cigarettes or booze: these are not tomatoes, they just look like tomatoes. You take them home and they stealthily ripen on the window ledge just like they were real. But when you bite in, or slice them on a sandwich, you find out they aren't real, they're fraudulent.
The late summer and fall is when Tomato Man becomes my hero.
You see, I've never been able to grow tomatoes very well.
In fact, as I have outlined above, it's not easy even to BUY good tomatoes.
But Tomato Man can grow them. Tomato Man, who doesn't even live on a farm, grows lots of tomatoes in his front and side yards on Walnut Street, near St. Mary's where I used to live and went to school.
Tomato Man's yard is chock-a-block full of red, tasty tomatoes -- like the ones we used to get 65-70 years ago. Red, round, tangy tomatoes. Real Michigan tomatoes.
Tomato Man, Bill, is a gentleman in a wheelchair who is helped by his brother, John, to achieve tomato-growing stardom every year.
Tomato Man takes the utmost care in preparing to grow outstanding tomatoes. Go by in the early spring and you will see the raised tomato beds, the mulching, the wires to keep the tomatoes off the ground. I suppose he has some secret method, not chemical fertilizer either, but whatever it is -- it works.
Strikes me that faith has a lot to do with the results of Tomato Man's work. Yes, FAITH!
In front of their house on Walnut Street Tomato Man and his brother show their faith in humanity by offering the finest crop of tomatoes on the "honor system." You take the lovely tomatoes on faith they will taste real and Tomato Man has faith you will leave the appropriate payment on the table with the plastic bags.
Tomato Man has helped rebuild my faith in human nature.
He has shown me what a Real American can do.
I only hope to find some way to live up to his ideal.