When I was little, I would not eat a tomato. YUCK! Then one day I discovered I loved them and one year I planted some and ate so many my both developed sores from the acidity nature of the little red guys. This year has been a slow year for tomato maturation in Indiana . . . but finally, they are nice and red and juicy.

I have been eating them and each one tastes good, but that magnificent zest is no longer there. No more do I put a big old slice in my mouth and suddenly want to put my head down on the kitchen counter in a moment of ecstasy.

I am reminded of my father in the summer eating area, quoting William Wordsworth:

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes, 10
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth.

I was in my teens then, I think . . . or just a wee bit older. Who knew I’d find the truth of that in a tomato?