He watched this show on agriculture
and the interviewer is in the field
and the farmer says he can eat the

potato. “Really?” the guy asks on
script, gets a knife from the farmer,
slices off a nice piece and chows

down. The man remembers biting into
a big, old, russet potato when he
was a kid and going, “Yuck,” and

his mother saying, “Eddie, leave
those potatoes alone.” The farmer
tells the interviewer that there

are so many varieties of spuds that
some are gourmet eating as they are
right out of the ground as he had

just demonstrated. The interviewer
Hmm’s his acknowledgment and approv-
al while he continues chewing and

swallowing. The man wondered if it
might taste even better with salt.
He wouldn’t have been surprised

if the interviewer had pulled out
one of those disposable salt shakers
right on cue. With the man’s inter-

est perked, he made it over to the
purple fingerlings he and his wife
picked up at the farmer’s market,

cut a thin slice, salted it and
popped it in my mouth. “Hmm,” he
said approvingly and told my wife

it was a little like a starchy rad-
ish. She said, “Ed, leave those
potatoes alone.” Sometimes the

passing of time is as short, small
and simple as the difference be-
tween three, little letters.