Loose tomatoes roll off counter tops and splat on the tiled floor. The contents of sealed jars beside the sink jiggle with each heavy step of the tomato monster as she enters the kitchen, extracts a paring knife from the drawer, weighs it in her hand, grips its wooden handle. Inside the jars, the tomatoes have separated into transparent juice like plasma and red flesh. The tomato monster--that's me--puts down the knife and picks up a jar of red pulp and tips it upside down then right again, sees there is some extra air in the jar. Aarrg. Dishtowels are strewn about with blood-colored stains on them. There is nowhere to put bags of groceries or a hot pan after removing it from the stove. Tomato monster must can more tomatoes this evening, or nobody can pour a bowl of cereal, nobody will have room to slice an onion.

My garden contains forty-two tomato plants. I didn't intend to plant so many but I had extra space after planting what I needed. A tomato plant, chosen from among the 200 varieties available at Bell's Greenhouse in Comstock, costs less than a dollar. That is why today I call and beg my neighbor Lynne. "Come, take tomatoes. Take all you can use." That is why I carry tomatoes wherever I go, yogurt containers full of the small ones: red cherry, orange cherry, grape, yellow pear-shaped. See, Christopher, this is why I have saved dozens of quart-yogurt containers, and sherbert containers and cottage cheese containers.

Shortly after our August wedding eighteen years ago, my mother gave Christopher a framed New Yorker cartoon by Gahan Wilson. The caption reads: "Here comes your tomato surprise, sir." As the waiter stands poised to lift the lid, a dozen tomatoes wielding axes are climbing the man's chair. This is how my husband feels at this time of year, when tomatoes cover every surface, clog every drain, when every sweep of his gaze takes in a seed-strewn patina of tomato pulp.

My darling Christopher does not like tomatoes, has never liked tomatoes, has never tasted one as far as I know. His mother told me that he never ate any tomato as a child, not even a bite. He was known to throw vegetables of which he did not approve, and tomatoes flew whenever presented. Nowadays he pushes his glasses up onto his forehead and reads the ingredients list on the side of every cracker package that enters our home, to make sure that powder of the tomato is not lurking down near the bottom of the list. Nonetheless, at this time of year, he inhales the stuff night and day. I'm certain it has entered his bloodstream.

My mother Susanna cans tomatoes, and a few years back she taught me how simple it was to cold pack. My grandmother had taught her, and my grandmother's mother, mother of five and abandoned by husband in Wyoming certainly canned. In my mother's house, the upper high shelves (the ones you can only reach by standing on a chair) have always been stuffed with quart jars of tomatoes for the Midwestern dinners she fed her own five children and assorted cousins, neighbors: goulash (toms with ground beef, macaroni), Spanish rice (toms with ground beef, rice, peppers), stuffed peppers (toms with ground beef, rice, peps), spaghetti sauce (toms with ground beef, peps, and mushrooms) and chili (toms with ground beef, beans, peps).

Christopher would not touch these dishes with a ten foot long pole bean, and so I don't make them. I generally eat my tomatoes raw (in season) or poured out of the jar and heated out of season. Rose-colored Brandywines are my current favorites, flavor-wise, and they make up about a dozen of my 42 plants. The easiest to can are the small oblate easy-to-peel Romas, but I can them all. With the exception of the Black Russian tomatoes, that is. Black Russians are actually very dark green and they look poisonous in the glass jars.

I do not have bathroom guest towels--you can dry your hands on one of Chris's dirty T-shirts the same as I do--but I do have guest tomatoes. If you visit, I will present you with flawless tomatoes, the loveliest ones of optimal ripeness. For myself I prefer to eat the damaged ones; I get joy out of salvaging the ones with bug holes, the ones that are so swollen with juice that they crack. The wildlife--birds, woodchucks maybe--eat some of my tomatoes, but I don't really care, since I have so many.

Praise goodness, so far there are no tomato hornworms in my garden. I've seen them on other women's gardens, and the word worms hardly does them justice. At four inches long and horned, they might more fairly called tomato snakes, tomato dragons, tomato demons. I do not use chemicals in my garden, so in order to keep the insects away, I can only strive to be a good person and keep my heart as pure as practically possible. My sister-in-law's tomato worms might have been brought on by her failure to love my brother properly. As I see it, from the time the worms appeared on her plants, it was a steady decline to her finally moving back into her parents' house. As I admire my garden, I vow to never belittle my husband or to demand he satisfy my emotional needs.

My tomatoes grow in a substrate of black muck, sand, and donkey manure, through holes I have punched in three-foot wide strips of black plastic. Between those rows I have piled hay and more donkey manure, eliminating most of the need for weeding. My brother Tom sent me home with some Miracle Grow this year to mix into my water, and I've put it on twice, but other than that, it's all organic. So far nobody from the prison has complained about the smell of manure.

My garden is actually closer to the minimum-security women's prison than to my own house. To get to my garden I follow a path a few hundred yards through the woods. Christopher built the path with his Ford 8-N tractor and I sprinkled a truckload of wood chips atop the muck.

There are things in my garden that are not tomatoes: peppers, eggplant, summer squash, winter squash, a few cucumbers, onions, turnip greens; French sorrel and parsley and burnett for salads; herbs like tarragon, oregano, sage, thyme, savory; lavender; St. John’s wort (in case I get depressed); pennyroyal (for girls in trouble), stevia (for sweetening tea); and an absurd amount of mint (spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, catnip), but that's all small potatoes.

Sometimes the prisoners come out for a smoke break while I'm picking tomatoes or weeding. They're not supposed to shout to me, or to anyone on the outside. Seeing them makes me appreciate my freedom, especially my freedom to grow tomatoes, as many as I want, even way too many. The girls do not have a garden, and I sometimes deliver tomatoes to them, so that they will remember freedom. The only freedom they express now is the freedom to smoke. I see the girls on their Sunday smoke break, some lounging on the lawn, others hugging their knees on the curb, some chatting, others silent, all smoking. So far, the prison officials have allowed my tomatoes ingress. My tomatoes have made their way to the inside, even those too juicy and ripe to be conducive to orderly conduct.

One day recently I was approaching my garden on the woods path, and a dark haired girl was stepping over piles of lawn clippings and tree trimmings, determinedly headed toward the woods, not even seeing me because her dark bangs were in her eyes. Her arms were stiff from incarceration, but they were starting to loosen.

"Going somewhere?" I said. Her head jerked up so her bangs splashed against her forehead. Immediately I regretted speaking so authoritatively. Maybe I should have just hidden behind a tree and watched her go. Would she have run? If she'd followed the path, she'd have ended up at my house. My wallet and car keys were on the dining room table and the door was unlocked. Somewhere in there we've got a rifle and a shotgun. Or she might have stepped on a board with nails in it and sued us.

"This your woods?" she asked. I nodded yes. She said, "It makes me think of Wicca."

I turned around and looked at the woods, the view from the prison, different from my view from home, or the view from inside the woods. The lawn surrounding my garden gives way abruptly to swamp oaks and box elders with gnarled, mossy branches. Black raspberry brambles form a kind of living fence below. The woods are a wild place at this time of year, thick with birdsong and seedpods. Poison ivy slithers up trees, and roots reach out to trip you if you aren't expecting them. Perhaps this girl is aware that tomatoes belong to the deadly nightshade family.

"Are you a witch?" I asked.

"I guess I should go back," she said, before I could offer her a tomato. She returned to the prison at a jog.

The minimum-security prison is brick, with a little stream running across the front, and when we first moved here it was a nursing home. Contrary to the guilty arrogance of the children and grandchildren who did not visit, the old and infirm in that place did not dream of their offspring. Most did not even dream of youth. They dreamed of the tomatoes of their middle age. I had never intended to garden, but those old folks dreamed so hard I had to start breaking up the mucky clay, hauling in sand and manure. They dreamed tomato vines that snaked out through cracked windows, stretched through the woods, rattled my own windows and doors. Their tomato dreams awakened me early in the morning, even though Christopher works the late shift and I don't get to bed until after one o'clock.

Those old folks lost their minds in those beds in those rooms where no fruit swelled or ripened all summer long. They grasped in vain for favorite old wooden handled paring knives, the ones they had sharpened on sharpening stones or had watched their husbands sharpen. Finally, in their endless and dull waking hours, they forgot the feel of good knives in their hands, forgot even the feel of tomatoes warmed by the sun. Then one after another those old people died.

The prison girls have temporarily lost their freedom to grow tomatoes, have lost their access to sharp knives. Probably those girls weren't growing tomatoes even when they had the chance and that is why they turned to drugs and smoking and breaking and entering. Summer especially can be rife with trouble if a girl is not occupied by some flesh or other, especially if her husband works the late shift.

When I started canning, I packed the tomatoes cold into jars as all the women in my family did. Back then, life was fast and loose. We drove without seat belts, had unsafe sex, ate meatloaf even when it remained unrefrigerated overnight. But two years ago, the USDA changed their canning recommendations, and there will be no more cold packing. So in the new millennium, a girl must boil her tomatoes if she is to keep out of trouble on hot August nights.

Canning Tomatoes

Before you start, you should have a pile of ripe tomatoes, never refrigerated, some clean jars (sterilization not necessary), the same number of canning lids and rings (Lids have to be new, rings you can and should reuse), a canning kettle or big soup pot, or something in which to put the full jars to boil, deep enough to cover the top of the jars with water. There should be something you can put in the bottom to keep the jars from sitting directly on the bottom of the pot—canning kettles usually come with a rack inside them. I guess if you want to know how many tomatoes to use, you can weigh them in advance, figure just over a pound per pint.

1. Drop clean tomatoes into boiling water for one minute or so, and take them out. When they're cool enough to handle (you can dip them in cold water), slip their skins off and cut away bad spots and any hard white parts, and the stem site of course. Catch the juice as it runs out during this cutting.

2. Quarter the peeled tomatoes, then put them in a pan and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling tomatoes into quart jars with 1 teaspoon salt in bottom of each (or 1/2 teaspoon for pints) and fill to 1/2 inch below the very top of the jar. You can stick a knife down inside the jar to get air bubbles out, if you think there are any.

3. Meanwhile, you've brought to boil a small pan of water and dropped in lids and let them simmer five minutes to soften the rubber and to sterilize them. Drop in the ring, too, let them steam for a minute or two.

4. When jars are full, wipe off rim to assure a clean seal (check your jars, make sure the rims has no chips), put on lid and screw a jar ring on hand tight.

5. Now place the jars into the big a kettle and fill with enough water to cover the tops of the jars and put this on a burner on the stove. When it comes to a boil, start timing 45 minutes for quarts (or 35 minutes for pints).

6. Lift the jars out and let them sit on the counter for a few days so you can make sure the seal is good. Leave jar rings on for 24 hours. Then you can take them off, use them for your next batch.

A link for canning tomatoes smartly is:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/
library/1985_July_August/
Can_Your_Tomatoes_Carefully_

News and Letters

Brother Tom and his wife Heather have given birth to a premature baby Kennedy Anne Marie Campbell, at 28 weeks. Tiny Kennedy will remain in the tiny baby ward at Bronson hospital until she is able to eat all her food on her own. She was born at two pounds eleven ounces, lost weight, then gained, then developed an infection (treated with vancomycin!) that took her back to her birth weight. Now she's up over five pounds and has just come home. As a terrible counterpoint, Heather's mother has just been in an accident involving head trauma and has died. Heather, girl, if you make it through this summer, you'll make it through anything.

Jennifer Razee writes from New York City: Anybody can muster that old-hat Power of Positive Thinking, but ya can't beat the curative powers of The Power of Sexy Thinking. Calling on that and other powers, I am keeping my spirits lively, thank you--hard not to, here in the big city (to which I've "gone away for the cure" at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, staying with my sister, Lisa, in Brooklyn). On Sunday my Lisa and I danced on the Coney Island boardwalk, twirling 'round little girls and old men to some kinda world beat house music that you couldn't not dance to. (You gotta let me know if the italic font in "not" remained intact instead of morphing into code. . . . These things matter to proofreaders.)

Speaking of proofreading, when a technician at Memorial learned I proofread and edited for a living, she asked for my website, which Lisa promptly told her would be up and running this Monday. So, check out tkEdit.com: modest, but sufficient for now. (If you wanna see a website that brags right proper, see Lisa-RoxanneWalters.com. One look, and you'll know why I only call my sister an overachiever when I'm jealous.)

I'm back to VT on Wednesday or Thursday, then down in NYC again on the 15th, with surgery on the 17th. While I'll have a mastectomy that day, I'll wake up with the beginnings of a bionic titty. ("Firmer, stronger, perkier. . . we can rebuild her. We have the technology.")

From Heidi Bell, Aurora: We went to see Macbeth the other night at an outdoor theater. At certain points, the trees around the stage were lit with red lights. Very creepy. The witches were great, although I could have sworn one of them was played by a man. Having seen the play, I'm wondering how it is that so many stories can show that evil doesn't pay and yet people still keep doing evil things, seemingly with their eyes wide open? Maybe evil does pay in real life and it's only in the stories that the evil people die horribly, with no honor.

From Carla Vissers, Holland MI: I went to a Beatles party Saturday night and won 1st prize for my costume. I went as Eleanor Rigby by cutting a large face out of a magazine and putting it in a pint jar, which I wore around my neck. The prize was a Beatles poster. Not sure what I'm going to do with it. The party was at my colleague and friend JK's house. Her best friend W was there from Dublin with her 7-month-old baby, A. Everyone's been hearing about W and her baby for months, so it was a big occasion. The baby is crazy-looking, though. Cute, but not quite human. Her head is very flat, and while her hair is strawberry blond, her eyebrows are fire-engine red. She has intense eyes and a nose that comes to a sharp, upturned point, like the toe of a Turkish slipper. Her mouth is a hole with no lips. I couldn't stop staring at her. At some point in the evening, Eric, who'd had a little too much to drink, looked at baby A, sitting in her mother's lap, and said "That baby looks like a character out of a Dr. Seuss book!" I wanted to crawl under the table.

Following up on donkey basketball: Jaci Dillon writes: I thought I'd let you know my Daughter in law is a teacher at Comstock. One of the donkeys pitched her off. She broke her wrist. Score one for the donkey.

From Lisa Lenzo, who is taking on poison ivy in Fennville, Michigan: A friend read me a short article in the back of Harper's that says Roundup is now thought responsible for the decline in amphibians. I have thousands of frogs on my land, so I bought some super-concentrated vinegar from Joan and John tonight, and sprayed some. I'll go see what damage was done tomorrow. The stuff is so strong, I practically reeled from the fumes when I was pouring it, and it stung my eyes. Joan warned me not to get it on my skin. Most of my poison ivy is in among quack grass, so I think that will take over. I planted some more lettuce today, since most of my lettuce turned out to be arugula, which is fancy but too strong on its own for me. I picked a grocery sack to bring to Everyday People Cafe, plus some mint and cilantro.

Lisa later adds a warning about the vinegar solution: just because it's organic, don't think it is mild. The nozzle of my sprayer malfunctioned, and while I was trying to fix it, some of the acid soaked through my gloves. By the time my fingers began to sting--within a few minutes--I had already burned them. They swelled up and turned pale and scared me a lot! I didn't know how badly I'd hurt them, or if I'd be able to type or drive, wash dishes, take a shower, etc. Luckily the pain was gone after a few hours of soaking them in ice water and baking soda. But the outer skin remained stiff and numb and after a few days cracked and peeled off. So, medium weight rubber gloves are necessary, as is clothing that covers you, and if you get any on you, wash it off immediately.

Home news: Darling Christopher's pole barn is complete, and it is the loveliest of pole barns, brownish-gray with its polycarbonate stripe along the top (to let in light), and its red trim, its sealed concrete slab. Eventually the yard will not be covered with the contents of the old garage, and eventually grass will grow again and water will not pool in odd places. I'm looking forward to teaching full-time this year at Kalamazoo College. Visitors: Lisa Durose and Susan Peters came to town from St. Paul MN, with their foster kid (soon to be adoptee) Desiree, who immediately caught a Michigan cold. Visiting with them at the 65-acre home and nature preserve of Tom Bailey and Katherine Joslin north of Comstock was bliss. Lisa has reported some bad experiences with snakes (their next door neighbors had 57 in their basement). Then came a visit from Heidi Bell and Adam Burke, as well as Eric and Carla Vissers, Jaimy Gordon (who showed up with champagne and pistachios, wearing her union pin) and Verlin and Norma VanRheenen. Of all these, only Carla dared ride a donkey. Janie Boer is visiting from California, where she lives on a boat; she says she is thinking of throwing away all her clothes, because there just isn't any room for them now that they have the satellite dish.

Writing News from St. Louis: Cousin Peter Green's true story, Dad's War with the United States Marines will soon be available for sale. There was an impressive St. Louis Post Dispatch article about Ben Green (Peter’s dad) and the book. Check out the book’s website: www.dadswar.net You can order early at a discounted price. Congratulations, Peter!

Send news, letters, etc. to Bonnie Jo, PO Box 52, Comstock MI 49041 or bonniecamp@gmail.com