Of gourds and fishes

Yesterday, while frying up some trout (compliments of a neighbor) for dinner, I was reminded of the small town in northeast Oregon where I lived for some years. There, it seemed, almost everbody had a vegetable garden. Back then I was a gardener, too, though probably more persistent than avid.

That first spring, while I was prepping and laying out my garden, my retired neighbor came over and leaned on the fence. Typical of small towns, neighbors were friendly, happy to advise or help on whatever project one might be about. I had built up five four-by-four foot raised plots and I was telling him what I intended to plant in each. My neighbor asked, "No zucchini, then?"

"No," I said, "Why, do you think I should plant some?"

"No, no," he chortled. "I was just asking."

I said, "I've got room. I could throw in three or four vines."

"I wouldn't," he said.

"Why not?" Now I was curious.

At that point his wife stuck her head out the back door to advise him that lunch was ready. As he turned to go he was chuckling and he said over his shoulder to me, "You'll see, you'll see."

And I did see.

By late summer, town was awash in zucchini. It seems most gardeners planted it and the climate and soil were ideal. Proliferate doesn't begin to describe it. As it turned out, my neighbor always had zucchini in his garden and during August and September we were the recipients of several full grocery bags of the tubular green squash. At work there were bags and boxes of zucchini free for the taking and the local restaurants took to featuring zucchini dishes as daily specials.

The neighbor told me that there was usually so much zucchini that people didn't know what to do with it. In fact, every September their church sponsored a potluck where all the dishes had to include zucchini, partly for fun, partly to see if anyone had found a new way to prepare it.  So much was to be had that the word around town was that, if you were at Safeway's produce counter buying zucchini, it meant you didn't have any friends.

As I turned the fish in my skillet to finish cooking, I realized it was much the same way around South Fork RV parks: if you have to catch your own trout, it means you don't have any friends.