Of Carrots and Credit
 By PATRICIA CRISAFULLI
I returned last night from a quick business trip to New York, including to a notable Wall Street firm. Needless to say, everywhere I went all anyone talked about is the market, the market, the market. I’m no financial guru, and I can’t say what’s going to happen in the midst of the current market meltdown. What we used to call the “housing bubble” and then the “credit crunch” has become a financial cataclysm across the globe.
I am reminded, however, of a story my father told, of tough times in the 1930s in the midst of the Great Depression—a phrase that’s being bandied about a bit these days. It’s a story of carrots and credit.
My paternal grandfather came to the U.S. from Sicily in the Teens, along with his family. His father, my great-grandfather, was a laborer in the iron works in my hometown of Oswego, New York, on the shores of Lake Ontario. Their dream, however, was to own a piece of land, something that wasn’t possible for them in Sicily. And so my family became sharecroppers: draining and clearing swampland to plant cash crops—lettuce and onions—in the rich, black soil.
Even as a little boy, my father worked on the farm, weeding endless rows of lettuce on his hands and knees. The farm was their life, and with what they made and saved they bought a few acres of land, and then a few more.
Then came a stretch of especially hard times in the depth of the Depression when bad weather ruined the lettuce. Three or four failed crops put my grandfather in debt to the seed company, to the point that he was told no more. Lettuce seed was too expensive to sell on credit to a farmer who had been unable to pay what he owed. As my grandfather turned to leave, the man at the seed supply company had a sudden change of heart.
“See what you can do with this,” the man said, handing my grandfather a box of carrot seeds.
“You’ll see,” my grandfather promised. “I’ll make enough money to pay you back and more!”
I wonder if the seed supplier expected to see or hear from my grandfather again.
And so they planted carrots instead of lettuce on the land they had bought with true sweat equity. They worked and hoped and prayed.
As I write this, I am looking at an old black-and-white photograph dated October 17, 1938—nearly seventy years ago to the day. In it my 20-year-old father stands in front of a truck laden with carrots. In his hands he holds jumbo-sized bunches of carrots. His broad smile cuts deeply into his then-thin face.
It was a bumper crop—enough to pay off every debt to the seed company and keep the family going. And the farm grew, eventually become a large operation owned by my father and one of my uncles. Two-and-a-half-years after Dad’s death, we still own some of the adjacent land, a heritage that exceeds any real estate value.
As we nervously watch the stock market spiral downward, wondering when we’re going to hit a bottom—looking for answers or at least someone to blame—I offer the story of carrots and credit. Even when times are bleak, there is eventually a way. And with faith and hard work, we will pull through.
GUEST BLOG - The World in a Cup of Tea
BY KATHLEEN GOEDERT
Exotic and ordinary, historical and modern, tea is part of my past and my present. I have early memories of my maternal grandmother making plain black Red Rose tea in a teapot covered with tiny green and pink flowers and trying to figure out who got the little ceramic figurine from the box of teabags. She had a beautiful collection of Royal Daulton teacups, a few of which she gave to me before she died. I’ve never really used the cups formally, except as a special treat, like a tea party or sitting home with a sick child needing diversion.
My interest in tea developed at a later time, just a few years ago. I read a reference to www.Specialteas.com in a magazine, checked it out on a whim, and the purely exotic nature of their collection swept me away. My orders represented for me a taste of another country far away and began to attract notice as the VISA bills came in. It was gently suggested that I might restrain myself, but every time I checked the website, I was unable to control my fascination with the variety of their many teas from all over the world.
Standing in my kitchen holding a quarter-pound of Himalayan Oolong is as far away as I need to go. Tea for me is the same as being an armchair traveler. I imagine the people who grew it, the plantation, the process of tending and plucking the tea, the drying and the processing. I taste the different teas and wonder what gives them their distinctive flavors and fragrances: smoky or flowery, robust or very light. I picture the places and the people involved in producing my tea—the hands that touched it and the clothes they wore.
I have teas from South Africa, the Himalayas, China, and India. I am lured by the promised flavors, such as Strawberry White Tea and Honeybush Vanilla, Rooibos Key Largo, and Earl Grey de la Crème, with its splash of vanilla and cream as well as the customary oil of bergamot. Even the words enchant me. On dreary days I look at the catalog just to read about faraway places and native ingredients, weather conditions and altitudes. I dream of writing a novel about a girl living on a tea plantation in India.
I love the smell of tea, which evokes for me the harsh dryness of India or the verdant and fruity fields and orchards of our own country. This fantasy life seems minor compared to any number of vices that I could allow to thrive in my life. I don’t drink, don’t gamble, don’t really shop, but I reap such incredible satisfaction from scooping that tea into a strainer with my long-handled silver tea spoon.
For some, tea is a social lubricant, but others enjoy it alone, whether in the middle of the night or the middle of the afternoon. I’m not sure which category I fit into. In the winter, I share a pot of tea with my mother after our Friday morning breakfast, usually Earl Grey de la Crème, her favorite. Sometimes my 17-year-old son has a cup of South African Rooibos with a little honey in the evening with me. Frequently I write in the middle of the night, enjoying a solitary “cuppa.”
For me there is almost as much joy in the preparation of the tea as in the consumption. From choosing the mug or pot to scooping the loose tea into the strainer, boiling the water and smelling the first waft of aroma after pouring the hot water on the tea. From teas requiring 7 to 10 minutes to steep, I have learned patience, knowing it will still be hot when it’s ready.
Occasionally I give tea as a very specially selected gift, the latest being one called Blueberry Cocktail for a dear friend I went blueberry picking with not too long ago. While I don’t often drink herbal teas myself, the ingredients enchant me: blueberries, grapes, hibiscus, beetroot, black currant leaves, and black currants—perfect reminders of late summer for the coming winter.
Tea evokes far-away places and climates, cultures and people who value tea even more than we Westerners do; and its meanings and social purposes that are more and varied than just refreshment and comfort. It is a world in a cup, inviting me to take a sip.
Kathleen Goedert is a writer, wife, mother, and friend who lives in Chelsea, Michigan. She is a frequent contributor to FaithHopeandFiction
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