Traffic Jam

A couple of decades ago, Peggy and I took a fabulous cruise across the Delaware Bay on the Cape May (NJ) - Lewes (DE) Ferry. This is a 17-mile crossing on one of three very large ferry boats. The thought of the ferry sinking never crossed my mind, until a man drove a huge tractor-trailer aboard, carrying a mammoth load of cantaloupes bound for the New Jersey side. I mean, there must have been enough 'loupes on that trailer for every man, woman, and Snooki in the Garden State to have a nice fresh one for breakfast every day that summer. I had never seen, let alone dreamed of, that many cantaloupes in one place, and of course I had Titanic visions of the mighty vessel going down in the Bay as ten million cantaloupes bobbed on the surface. 

I did think that little kids might have been saved by using cantaloupes as flotation devices. 

It just seemed to make sense that a giant heavy truck would be too much for the ferry to carry, but I thought better of my idea to discuss my concerns with the ship's captain, and when we docked ninety minutes later, I remember wondering why I was worried.

Now I have something new to worry about, and it's the chance that I might be behind a truckload of tomatoes that overturns. That's just what happened the other day near Vacaville, CA.

The load of fruit (remember, tomatoes are fruits, the same as plums and melons) spilled across several lanes of Highway 80 in Northern California. It took over six hours to get the mess off the road, according to the California Highway Patrol.

This stretch of road where the truck hit the center divider is between San Francisco and Sacramento. 

 

Because I was raised in a bucolic setting, my grandmother made her own pickles and mayonnaise and root beer and catsup, and she told me many times of going to the produce market downtown to get bushels of tomatoes. She recalled that there would be giant vats and tubs full of ugly tomatoes: not rotten, but squishy and unfit for the pretty produce section at the supermarket. Grandma told me in a hushed aside that the big catsup companies bought the bad tomatoes, pointedly reminding me that the homemade version was better. 

Now, I'm not saying that the tomato companies were on the scene there, helping with the big cleanup. But I will be on the lookout for tiny bits of gravel or asphalt on my burger for the next few years.

And I still don't eat cantaloupe.