Letters From Andy

Dawn in the Andes can be icy, but by mid-morning the sun may be hot on your back. After sundown the temperatures drop again, until your hands and feet are numb. The Andean Altiplano is a landlocked depression lying between the eastern and western ranges of the Cordillera, and it slopes from around 9,000 feet above sea-level in Peru to around 13,000 feet in Bolivia. Altiplano means “high plains,” but the Altiplano is not nearly as flat as its name implies. The atmosphere on the Altiplano is thin and the air is dry. The sky overhead is deep blue by day, and by night it is jet black and sparkles with majestic drifts of stars. When I visited Bolivia I was impressed by the snowy peaks that surrounded me, but outer space seemed infinitely deep— and very close. I went out star gazing at night and felt dizzy, as if I was more in danger of falling off the planet than of tumbling down the mountains.
The daily extremes of temperatures in the Andes have prompted a number of different plant species there to evolve tuberous habits. A tuber is a swollen, underground stem that stores up energy so that if a “killing frost” burns off all the foliage above the ground, the plant still has enough life protected under an insulating mantel of soil to sprout again. The concentrated sugars and starches found in tubers have made a number of tuberous Andean plants important food crops for people. The sweet potato, for example, is a tuberous morning glory from Peru that’s now cultivated all over the world. There’s also a tuberous oxalis, called oca, that is a common food on the Altiplano, and of course everyone is familiar with the tuberous plant from the nightshade family known as the potato.
[singlepic=16,320,240,,right]Potatoes evolved in the Andes, and they’re still cultivated there in great profusion. While we find just few varieties of potatoes on our supermarket shelves, an average farmer’s market in Bolivia will display potatoes of every imaginable shape and color heaped up for display. Little marble sized potatoes are piled up next to long, skinny ones and big round ones. Colors ranging from blues, reds and purples to yellows, whites and browns. The variety of potatoes for sale helps to make up for the relative scarcity of other foodstuffs in the highlands.
The harsh environment on the Andean Altiplano means farming is a risky way of life. Bolivian farmers have turned the extreme climatic conditions they must contend with to their advantage, and they use mother nature’s mood swings to preserve their harvests for the hard times they know lie ahead. Fresh dug potatoes are cut into pieces and laid out on rocks under the sun to dry, while the resident farm dogs prowl and bark any marauding crows away. At night, any residual surface moisture that sweats out from the potato chunks is frozen into a spiky beard of ice crystals, which evaporate in the morning sun. After a few days of this treatment, the potato slices are essentially freeze-dried. These black leathery potato chips are called chuño, and can be kept without spoiling almost indefinitely. Chuño is an acquired taste, but when you get used to it, it’s earthy and satisfying in stews and broths.
Besides potatoes in all their myriad forms, the people living on the Altiplano depend on beans, chiles, corn— and Guinea pigs. Each of these crops is enjoyed fresh during its brief season and then dried for future use. Guinea pigs, or cuy, are native to South America, and they occupy the same ecological niche in rocky peaks of the Andes as the marmot does in our High Sierra, but they’re raised in captivity by farmers too. After the slaughter, cuy are skinned, gutted, butterflied, and given the chuño treatment. Guinea pigs have so many tiny bones that removing them would be tiresome, inefficient— and wasteful. Much of the protein and minerals would be lost if the bones and marrow were discarded.So the cuy are set out spreadeagled on the rocks, just like the potatoes. In the mornings, after the rime of frost has evaporated from the drying flesh, the guinea pig carcasses are gently pounded with a wooden mallet. Little by little, the rodent’s tiny bones are pulverized and the flesh is dried and flattened until the cuy resembles a crisp, meaty, pancake. These cuy pancakes are stacked away and stored until called for. Dried cuy can eaten like crackers or crumbled into soups and stews to give them more flavor and “body.”
Life isn’t easy on the Andean plateau. It seemed to me like half the people I met in Bolivia dreamed of making their way to Miami. But among the traditional people, it is still considered polite to thank the earth goddess, Pachamama, for the blessing of food. Before taking a drink or swallowing a bite, a splash of the beverage or a piece of the food is always spilled on the ground for the goddess. “A taste for Pachamama, a taste for me,” murmurs the grateful diner. I heard this phrase so often as I traveled around Bolivia that I began to notice the people who didn’t give thanks for what they had. This practice of spilling drinks and food makes for sticky floors on buses and in public places. In the absence of any SPCA, giving “tastes” to Pachamama may be the only national institution that keeps skinny stray Bolivian dogs alive. Bolivia can be a tough place to live, but this common, everyday habit people have there of saying thanks gives an otherwise hard and austere country a grace even affluent countries can aspire to.
copyright 2007 Andy Griffin

Ramakrishna compared the ego to an onion. If you peel away an onion’s rings the way spiritual experiences strip at the ego, after all the layers are gone, there is nothing— no central core with an egoistic structure, and no onion either, just a void, and no barrier remaining to a union with Brahma.
I peeled an onion, a semi-flattened, saucer-shaped, Italian, cipollino Bianco di Maggio. After tearing eight layers away I was left with a tiny, pearly white, teardrop-shaped piece of bulb. I broke it open — layer number nine — and nothing remained but tears in my eyes from the oxidized sulfur compounds released from the onion’s tissue by my violence. Am I having a deep and metaphoric experience, I wondered, or have I just wasted an onion?
I gathered up the curled, juicy onion pieces and tossed them in a bowl of cool water so they couldn’t oxidize any more and turn bitter. Onions may be cheap and ubiquitous, but they are not easy to grow, at least not organically, so I didn’t want to waste even one. I’ve shed more tears over the trials of growing onions than I ever have from slicing them.
To yield well, an onion bed must be kept completely free of weeds because onions are shallow-rooted and the plants can’t tolerate much competition. Without recourse to herbicides and soil fumigants, organic onion culture can entail costly hand-weeding once the plants are too large for mechanical cultivation. Onions grow slowly, too, giving weeds lots of opportunities to sprout. And onions are hungry for fertilizer and thirsty for water. If a farmer expects a decent yield then he or she needs to sow onions where they will receive full sun and perfect drainage. It is fair to say that onions are among the most self-centered and egoistic of the garden vegetables. Am I what I eat?
Sourdough bread sat on the table in front of me next to a cube of butter. My tearful meditation had leftme feeling a void at my core. So I spread some butter on the bread, and poured the bowl of onion shards into a colander and shook it to drain them. “Would Ramakrishna approve?” I asked myself as I cobbled the buttered bread with puzzle pieces of raw onion and sprinkled them with a pinch of salt.
Not everyone appreciates onions. Some religious traditions in Hinduism hold that Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas— or the priestly, warrior, and professional classes— should avoid “hot” foods like onions that lead to lustful thoughts. Jains supposedly don’t eat onions either, and neither did the priests or royalty of ancient Egypt. The slaves who built the pyramids ate onions though, both raw and cooked, and with great frequency. I bit into my sandwich and enjoyed it. I must not have been Cleopatra in a past life. But that’s ok; some of us have to be peasants.
Funny how the onion that Ramakrishna saw as a perfect metaphor for the illusion of individuality and the nothingness of the void should have been seen by ancient Latins as a symbol of wholeness. Our words “onion” and “union” share a common Latin root in unio, meaning unity. The successive layers of an onion wrapped up in a single round bulb do suggest unity, especially when compared to their cousins in the Lily family, the multi-cloven garlics.
Onions are like the spicy, girly, back-up singers whose role on stage is to sway back and forth and coo the sweet harmonies that allow some hunky but mediocre lead singer to sound good. What cuisine hasn’t been sweetened and enhanced by onions? Where would we be if onions didn’t add zest to American potato salad, or sugar to Pakistani dal, or bind together Chinese dumplings? If ancient Egyptian priests, Jains, Brahmins, warriors and Vaisyas can’t share in my onion harvest, that just leaves more for the rest of us.
I swallowed the last bite of my onion sandwich and felt full for a moment— full of onion, full of thoughts about the onion-eating pyramid builders that came before us. Peeling onions and looking for an ego can leave anybody feeling hollow and teary-eyed. So if you’re feeling empty and blue, cut an onion, cry a little, and forget your worries as you prepare a meal you can share with friends. Soon people will be talking, glasses will be clinking, and the hot, spicy lilies will be shaking their hips and harmonizing in the background. What did those ancient Latins used to say? “E Pluribus Onion?”

Fresh broccoli is health food, but it almost killed me. It was in the early 1980s, when I worked at Star Route Farm in Bolinas. After a day in the fields, I’d walk downtown, buy a six pack at the liquor store, and sit on the sea wall at the end of Brighton Street looking out over the ocean. When it wasn’t foggy I could see the San Francisco peninsula off to the southeast across the Gulf of the Farallons. As the evening sky grew dark, the distant city lights would brighten, and soon San Francisco would float free from the hills she’s moored to and sparkle in the night from across the water like a magical ship. If I was going to make the drive south to the city later that night to deliver the farm’s harvest, I wouldn’t drink. But San Francisco glittered all the same for being so near at hand yet so far from my world at the same time.
Now that the largest organic farms are owned by the largest corporate farms, and most of the little independent hippie natural food stores have been swallowed whole by the big fish, vegetables are displayed for retail like sculptures or jewels and it’s funny to think back to those early days of the natural food movement when consumers half expected organic vegetables to be beat up, wilted, or dirty compared to “regular store-bought vegetables.” Some perverse customers even needed organic produce to look battered, as if being unclean or un-cooled was proof that the vegetables had really sprung from the earth. In the early eighties Star Route Farm had thirty acres under cultivation, which made it one of the largest organic farms in California. The vegetables we grew were beautiful in the field. But the industry was young then, and farmers and store keepers alike lacked the tools, and sometimes the knowledge, to perform the post-harvest handling procedures that could help deliver on the whole promise of organic, fresh and natural.
Take broccoli for example. Truly fresh broccoli is a revelation. When I worked at Star Route Farm I didn’t earn much money, and I saved my wages for important things, like beer and toilet paper. ate everything I could from the fields. The first time I cut a head of broccoli and steamed it four minutes later, I was amazed . The broccoli had a sweetness I’d never tasted before. Any dressing or sauce would have only clouded the fresh purity of the flavor. But to deliver some facsimile of that green sweetness to a distant customer is tricky. As broccoli ages it begins to express the odor and flavor of the mustard oil that is a characteristic component of every member of the Brassica family, from arugula to broccoli to cabbage to kale. Nowadays, organic growers follow the same post-harvest handling practices for broccoli as chemical farms do. These procedures help retain some semblance of freshness in the crop over time and distance. But back then post harvest technology was beyond our reach and the economies of scale that make it possible were not yet present.
As soon as commercial broccoli is harvested it’s packed into a waxed cardboard carton, and the boxes are stacked on a pallet. The pallet of broccoli is then fork-lifted into a hydro cooler, where water chilled to 34 is rained down through the boxes, washing away the field heat, until the core temperature of the broccoli drops into the thirties. Then the pallet of chilled broccoli is forked from the hydro cooler into a chamber where each box is pumped full of slush ice so that the broccoli is embedded in a square artificial glacier. The broccoli is then held in a refrigerated warehouse until it’s sold. The ice melts, but it melts slowly, trickling cold water through the broccoli stems. After the sale, the refrigerated truck that comes to carry the broccoli away backs up to the portal of the refrigerated warehouse until the rubber lips of the insulating diaphragm .kiss the square mouth of the refrigerator trailer and create a seal. Then the doors are raised, and the pallet of broccoli is trundled from the refrigerator warehouse into the refrigerated trailer. The doors are closed, the truck pulls forward, the lips unlock, and the truck drives off across America.
The pallets of broccoli will move from the reefer truck into another refrigerated warehouse at a regional distribution center. Food scientists will tell you that it is almost as important to the shelf life of green vegetables that the temperatures they’re stored at be stable as to be cold. Fluctuating temperatures cause tissue breakdown, just as warm temperatures do. At the regional distribution center pallets of broccoli are broken down into smaller units for delivery in other refrigerated trucks to outlying stores, where the boxes of broccoli will be stored in walk-in coolers. From there, individual bunches of broccoli will be lifted from the boxes where they nest, and laid out for the consumer to ogle on beds of crushed ice, or perhaps stacked in a pyramid beneath florescent lights and treated to an intermittent icy mist. These are the links in the “cold chain” that makes our “fresh anytime anywhere produce departments” in chain stores possible. Unless or until the frantic increase in the cost of oil one day makes waxed boxes, water chillers, freezers, ice, and trucking too expensive to ignore, it’s this cold chain that makes fresh broccoli cheap enough to waste.
But in the early eighties in the natural food industry was only just coming to grips with the techniques of post harvest handling or the goal of serving a national market. For Star Route Farm, as for most organic farms in the greater Bay Area, marketing a crop meant harvesting vegetables during the day and hauling them to Veritable Vegetable in San Francisco at night. Veritable Vegetable, or “V.V.” to produce insiders, was a feminist organic produce distributor collective. The women at V.V. delivered to the all the little hippie health food stores. Veritable has matured into an institution. Even men work there now. It makes me happy to see Veritable’s trucks on the road today because I know she’s a survivor that’s managed to evolve in the face of stiff competition. When the women at V.V. complained to us that our broccoli was turning yellow we had to listen. They suggested we find some way to ice it down.
We didn’t have an ice machine on the farm, and we didn’t know where to go to buy one that could
make the quantities of the crushed ice slurry we would need, so my boss had me buy ice in town. There isn’t much town between Bolinas and San Francisco, especially if you consider I delivered at night in a big truck that was hard to park. So I’d leave the farm around nine PM, late enough to avoid traffic, but early enough to get to the liquor store before it closed for the night. I’d drive slowly around the Bolinas lagoon to avoid hitting animals. The eyes of the racoons and possums crossing the highway to forage for food on the tidal flats would flash in the glare of the headlights. Just past Stinson Beach I’d gear down for the slow grind up the grade that hugs the rocky cliffs. I’d stay in low third past Slide Ranch and gear down even lower for the descent to Muir Beach. The swirling fog in the headlights was disorienting, but I’d keep the window cracked open so the fresh air would keep me alert, and I could smell the brine of the ocean and hear the boom of the surf at the bottom of the cliffs. The uphill grade past Green Gulch was steep, and the road downhill into Tam Junction was curvy. I wouldn’t pick up speed until I got onto southbound 101.
The streets of San Francisco were jarring after the wilds of West Marin. I’d blink against the brightness and watch for drunks and tourists instead of coons and possums. Veritable Vegetable was located in the warehouse district south of Army Street. I’d stop at a liquor store on Bayshore Boulevard that was nearby and stayed open late. The night clerk got to know me. He couldn’t leave the register, but he’d take my money, hand me the keys to the freezer they had out in back, and I’d load all the bags of ice they had in their cooler onto my truck. I’d spread the boxes of broccoli out across the loading dock at V.V. and open them. Then I’d rip open the bags of ice, one by one, and pour the ice into the boxes, then close them, re-stack the pallet, and roll it into Veritable’s cooler. It wasn’t cheap, it wasn’t efficient, and it probably wasn’t even effective, but back then, that was the best we could do.
One night when I got to the liquor store both lanes of Bayshore Boulevard were blocked by a couple of pimps with flashy cars. I don’t know for sure they were pimps. They could have been librarians dressed to kill, out for a night on the town in dark glasses and comporting themselves like fighting cocks, so that ignorant country boys like myself would presume they were successful pimps. The casual manner they took the whole street for their own was threatening. I parked behind them and stepped into the liquor store.
“Sorry Boss,” the clerk said. “No ice in back, but you can take what we’ve got in the store.” He waved me towards the refrigerator cases full of beer. “It’s closing time anyway.”
I went down the aisle, past the display racks of potato chips and the shelves of cheap wine. In the back corner there was a freezer locker with some ice— not enough that I’d be able to ice down the broccoli in conformance with optimum post harvest protocol, but more than I could haul out to the truck by hand. I went to get my dolly.
The two pimp/librarians were still blocking the street, but out of their cars now, strutting, boasting and swaggering. They knew each other, but it wasn’t clear they liked each other. One of the girlfriends was thirsty. “Come on baby,” she called out over the dissonant blare of music pulsing and clashing from both cars’ stereo systems. “Get me a drink.”
I pushed my dolly back to the liquor store, and proceeded to the rear of the store. I laid the dolly down so I could load it. I was on my knees pulling out ten pound sacks of ice when I heard the two pimp/librarians push their way into the store. Ding went the bell. They both wanted liquor— Courvoisier for the one, Johnny Walker for the other. And they each wanted to be served first. It
wasn’t going well for the clerk, who had to decide which arrogant prick of a customer to offend. I straightened up to pull my dolly. From where I stood I could see that the clerk had slipped one hand under the register. Just then, another man entered the store, white, bald, and wearing a camouflage army surplus jacket. He grabbed the first bottle of wine he came to and shoved it onto the counter next to the register.
The pimp/librarians pushed forward to object, and the white guy reached to pull a handgun out of his jacket. If he was intending to rob the store, he’d picked a bad night. Before he had his pistol drawn and leveled, the clerk and both pimp/librarians pulled their guns on him. I dropped down behind the Cheetos and the Ding Dongs. There was a frozen moment while the bald man with the gun decided whether or not he cared if he got shot. The clerk broke the ice.
“No worries Boss, just leave”
And he did, moving slowly backwards out onto the sidewalk. I peeked around the snack rack. The clerk pushed the two bottles of liquor towards the pimp/librarians.
“Thank you sirs. On the house. Come back soon. We’re closed for tonight.”
If delivering produce into the city in the middle of the nights had its film noir moments, there were things about it to appreciate too. The night-shift always plays by its own rules. Meddlesome middle managers are tucked away in bed. Working nights means never getting enough sleep, but the stress of having your circadian rhythms scrambled is partly compensated by a degree of freedom not often seen during the day. There’s a “we’re in this together” feeling that gives you something in common with everyone else you meet, and there’s a camaraderie among strangers at night that’s missing in the daylight.
I remember one night run from the farm into the city. It had rained off and on all day, and at dusk the storm intensified. I left the farm at ten in the evening and drove slowly around the Bolinas  lagoon. The tide was rising. The incoming wall of sea water acted like a dam at the mouth of the lagoon and blocked the outward flow of rain water streaming down off the ridges of the G.G.N.R.A. The lagoon was full to the brim and wavelets already lapped at the pavement. At Stinson Beach the wind hit the broad side of the truck like it was filling a sail. Highway One was closed ahead due to a mud slide, so I turned up the Panoramic Highway and away from the coast to take a detour over the shoulder of Mount Tam. There was no traffic and no creatures to be seen. All intelligent sentient beings were snug in their nests, tucked under rocks, sheltered in the holes of tree trunks. The road was covered in twigs and fir needles whipped from the trees by the wind. I stared into high beams and navigated around loose rocks in the roadway. When I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge I felt the full force of the gale, and I held the steering wheel tight in both hands to keep the truck from bucking.
Trucks that cross the Golden Gate always pass through the toll plaza in the far right hand lane. Since I entered the city on a regular schedule, every Tuesday and Thursday around eleven PM, I’d gradually came to know by sight the woman who worked for the Bridge Authority taking tolls. When her mustache and beard grew out enough to contrast oddly with her eyeshadow and rouge it became obvious, even to me, that she was a transvestite. I’m embarrassed now to say that I told jokes at her expense back on the farm, because she had wings under her vinyl windbreaker.
When I pulled up to her booth that night she was waiting for me.
“You hauling potatoes, sugar?” she shouted up.
“How’d you know?”
“You’re allover the scanner! Northbound C.H.P. turned around to look for you. Your potato box lids have been blowing off all across the span.”
“Oh, shit!”
“No shit!” she replied. He’ll ticket you . Littering. Spilling your load. Causing a traffic hazard! Take the Presidio off-ramp. They won’t look for you there.”
I gave her my money and took her advice, dodging back into the cover of the tall black cypresses in the Presidio. Sure enough, when I got to Veritable Vegetable the top layer of potato boxes, 50 in all, were missing their lids. I hadn’t secured the plastic tarp well and it had blown away, exposing my cargo. The strong winds I encountered on the Golden Gate must have sent the lids flipping and twirling off in the night like bats. The potatoes were wet from the rain and glowed bright red under the florescent lights in the warehouse.
The following morning I returned to San Francisco in my Volkswagen bug with a load of dry potato
box lids folded flat so the warehousewomen could efficiently stack the order I’d delivered. As I crossed the bridge I stayed in the far right lane hoping to thank this person I’d been making fun of, but she was gone. I guess she only worked graveyard. I never saw her again.
Several years ago in the dead of winter I took my family for a vacation in the City. It rained the entire time, but we had a nice time anyway. Some friends who were off traveling let us house-sit their home in Sutro Heights. Late one afternoon I took my daughter, Lena, and my son, Graydon, for a walk in a lovely park that perches high on the cliffs above Ocean Beach, and we wandered down the rain washed city streets to Baker Beach The clouds over the sea lifted long enough for me to see the outline of Bolinas Head on the northwestern horizon. So much had changed in twenty five years. The same rocky Marin Headlands, the same black cypresses in the Presidio, the same gray, choppy water under the Golden Gate Bridge, but I was different. I had my own farm now, south of San Francisco, with a wife, kids, employees, and a sagging body to care for.
My kids got bored as I stood there looking out across the Golden Gate, and they tugged at me to
leave. So I left. I knew what had happened to the organic food movement I’d come of age in, and I
keep in touch with my friends at Star Route Farm, but I left wondering whatever happened to the clerk, the pimp/librarians, the thief, and my drag queen toll taking angel. So much water under the bridge, but what a beautiful bridge.
copyright 2007 Andy Griffin

It’s easy to rent land or borrow money to buy a tractor, but having a family farm means having a family, and that starts with a good woman. The world is full of good women, but not every woman is an asset on a farm. Like many people, I took a few missteps when I first went looking for a life mate. Diana was my most striking failure.
Argentina was a duller place once Diana left to come to America. She’s a beautiful woman, with blond hair and strange golden eyes. She’s a smart woman, who besides her native Castilian, speaks fluent French, Italian, Portuguese, German, and English. The French she speaks properly, because she learned it at an English-style boarding school, the German she learned on her mother’s knee, the Italian she learned from the ladies her mother was friends with in Buenos Aires, and the Portuguese she picked up in a Brazilian women’s prison where she served time for cocaine trafficking. Her affluent father bought her way out of Brazil by selling one of his racehorses.
When I met Diana she used no drug stronger than hierba maté. The herb of hierba maté is a South American desert shrub, Ilex paraguariensis, the dried leaves of which are brewed into a strong tissane called  maté.  Maté is also the word for the dried gourd which is used by the maté drinkers as a cup, or vessel. Maté is prepared by putting a small quantity of hierba maté  leaves in the bottom of the dried gourd, then pouring hot water in to fill it. The maté is then sipped through a silver straw, called a bombilla, that has a spoon-shaped strainer on the end to filter out any particulate matter. Serious Argentinians drink maté daily, or even many times daily.
Diana took her hierba maté like a sacrament, and made a point of using water that was hot enough, but not too hot, else the scalding water drive bitter alkaloids from the stems of the hierba. She considered it important that the drink froth up with a fine foam, not in big bubbles. The only hierba she’d consume was of the highest quality, imported straight from trusted sources in Argentina. Hierba maté is delicious, and because it’s loaded with caffeine, it’s stimulating, but perhaps the most charming thing about the hierba mate ceremony is its social nature, because it is considered right and proper for a hierba sipper to pass their gourd and bombilla around, and in this way people are brought together, and conversations are born.
It was always interesting to hear Diana talk. “These hippies in Santa Cruz,” she’d start out, with exasperation in her voice, and I’d lean forward with a smile, waiting to hear what would come next, because of all people Diana was always the one to have a vision, or feel energies, or talk to birds. She was as close as someone born to Buenas Aires high society can be to being a flower child. And to hear it from her, her neighborhood back home had always been a cradle of non-conformists— the Guevaras lived just down the block. “And wasn’t their son their a disappointment!”
“These hippies in Santa Cruz calling people Nazis because they vote Republican!” She’d continue, and wave her hand in scorn. “In Argentina, we have real Nazis, like my brother, that ignorant, #%^@&*$% prick, tripiando en Hitler!”
But if Diana wasn’t “tripping on Hitler” like her brother, she had a few rough edges, as we all do. When she moved in with me I still was still sharing my house with Ramiro Campos and his family. She and Ramiro crossed swords, and she called him an “indio” — and not with the reverential tone she reserved for a guru she’d visited on an ashram in India. Ramiro called her La Dianamita, The Diana-mite, because she was usually having an explosive emotion,  passion, enthusiasm or scandal.
In San Francisco, Diana understood the empty curb sides by the fire hydrants to have been painted red by the City so that She would always have a place to park. All the yellow, blue, green, and white curbs were marked for her convenience too, and the delivery trucks, the handicapped, and the cabs, taxis, and limousines could all wait. When meter maids failed to appreciate this distinction, she’d  give them a piece of her mind. But Diana was generous to a fault, and she’d give anyone anything. “If we all shared what we had, and took what we needed, then we’d want for nothing, because life is a miracle, and greed is the constipation of the world!” Meter maids loved hearing that.
“I’m telling you, if you want for something, expect a miracle, and it will come,” she’d insist. But if the city ever got a penny from Diana for her parking fines, THAT would be a miracle.
Diana loved the United States for the freedom of opportunity that it offers, and she wouldn’t stand for our country being trashed by pathetic self-loathing Americans. One day we were selling produce at the Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market, and from across the parking lot she saw a trio of well-dressed, bronze-skinned women with platinum hair and Gucci bags approaching.
“Oh shit,” she said, and turned to busy herself unloading the far side of the pick-up truck where she couldn’t be seen.
But the women had already seen her, and soon there were hugs and kisses and much chatter in rapid-fire Spanish and Italian. The three women were friends of her mothers from Buenos Aires, visiting the United States, and “what an unexpected surprise to see you Diana— and looking so good, so thin, so tan!”
But when the ladies left, Diana’s smile left too.
“You watch,” she said. “When those #%^@&*$%  bitches get back to the hotel room, they’re going to call my mother up and tell that they saw me skinny, in rags, and selling potatoes in the streets like an Indian. They’re running for the phone right now!”
And sure enough, when we got home, there was a message from her father, appalled that she’d fallen so low— the prodigal daughter— and offering her air fare home so she could get her life together once again.
“You see?” she said. “Argentina is so stupid! That’s what I love about America!— that anyone can do anything, and if they want to sell vegetables in the street, then that’s honorable too.” Then Diana went down to the beach and threw her Argentinian passport into the ocean, vowing never to return.
As it turns out, Diana went back to Buenos Aires three weeks later, and her father didn’t pay her airfare. It was her aunt— her favorite aunt— who wrote her a letter with an airplane ticket in it, and begged her to come to Buenos Aires as the guest of honor at her upcoming wedding.
“This is important,” Diana said. “This is her sixth wedding, and nobody in the family takes her seriously anymore. If I don’t go, then no one from the family will be there, and what is family, if it’s not standing by your people?”
I agreed.
“Plus,” she added, “Tia’s weddings are so much fun. Last year she booked the reception at the finest hotel in Buenos Aires. Then she got drunk, stripped naked and danced in the fountain in the lobby. The security guards tossed her out of her own party!”
Diana had airplane tickets, but she didn’t have her passport. It was sitting on the seabed 10,000 feet deep in the Monterey submarine canyon off of Moss Landing. So she called the Argentinian consulate in San Francisco and explained the situation to them—  that she’d lost her passport and a family emergency in Buenos Aires had arisen. The consular official listened with all due concern, and promised her a copy of her passport within a month. Diana hung up, scowling. A month wasn’t good enough. The wedding was next week.
She called back.
“Perhaps there’s been some misunderstanding,” she said.
“No, we don’t think so,” the clerk replied.
“Because you don’t want to mess with me!” Diana started in. “My father is an ambassador!” (Not true. That would be her Uncle. Her father was an alcoholic, a gambler, and a race horse afficionado.) “And my mother’s lover is a prominent general!” (Not sure there, but Diana’s father may have been a retired army officer)  “And I am the close personal friend of….” and here she veered off into a litany of socialites that would have been known to anyone current with the beau monde of Buenos Aires. She concluded by slamming down the phone.
The passport arrived the next day, by special post.
“And that’s what I love about Argentina,” Diana said.
Diana left for the wedding, and all was calm on the farm. When she returned it was high season, and we were busy harvesting everything from Apple pimientos to Green Zebra tomatoes. She helped me load the truck to go to the farmers’ market in Santa Cruz, but we were late. I was speeding down Highway One through Aptos when I heard a siren, and saw a highway patrolman in my rear view mirror. I pulled over.
“You let me handle this,” Diana hissed. “You keep your mouth shut!”
The patrolman approached my pick-up on the passengers side, to avoid being sideswiped in the heavy freeway traffic. My truck was piled high with wet vegetable cartons, tables, tents, and all the paraphernalia of the farmers’ market stall. I was hoping I wouldn’t get a ticket for exceeding my load limit too. Diana rolled her window down. The officer stuck his head in the truck and asked me for my driver’s licence.
Diana looked up at the officer with her golden eyes, and tears began to well up. She sobbed. Then, choking back tears, she began to jabber and plead in German. The office stepped back, looking concerned. She gesticulated, spouted more German, spouted more tears, and when she was done with the cop, he’d welcomed us to Santa Cruz, apologized for frightening us, given us a pantomime of directions to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, and wished us a happy stay in America. The patrolman walked back towards his car.
“Go!,” Diana whispered. “Go!”
So I went. The cop didn’t follow.
“What did you say to him,?” I asked.
“Are you happy you didn’t get a ticket?” she asked me.
“Yes, I’m happy. But why were you speaking in German?”
“Your cops,” Diana said. “So cute, and so stupid. If I’d spoken in Castilian, he’d of thought I was a Mexicana, and given you a ticket. And if I spoke in Portuguese, he’d of thought I was a Mexicana, and given you a ticket, and if I spoke in Italian, he’d of thought I was a Mexicana, too, because you Americans can’t tell anyone apart. Everybody knows Americans feel shamed by the French, so I spoke German.”
That’s a snapshot of life with Diana. She lived for novelty, adventure, travel, excitement, and spontaneity. When, after twelve months she tired of the endless cycle of winter, spring, summer, fall, she took off, and moved in with an insurance agent who lived a mile away. I cried with tears of relief to see this striking woman with the golden eyes go. I’m a farmer, and I can only take so much spontaneous combustion. Besides, I agree with Diana.  “What is family, if it’s not standing by your people?” Diana found her family before I found mine, but mine was worth the wait. And that’s the lesson of farming— Nature wants to renew herself, but she takes her own time doing it.
copyright 2007 Andy Griffin

Party Animals
Growing vegetables is my business, but raising farm animals is my hobby. I’ve got sheep and goats, but my special pets are my two donkeys, Primavera, a six year old jennet, and her nine-month old foal, Sweetpea. In the evenings, when the scandals and stresses of running a small business can be put to rest for the day, I enjoy taking my donkeys for a walk around our home ranch. Sometimes my daughter, Lena, helps me brush them until their coats are glossy.
You can tell when donkeys are relaxed and happy because they hang their heads in contentment and close their eyes. When Prima is being groomed, her lower lip hangs down as if she’s beginning to melt. Sweetpea likes to be brushed too, but as she’s young and energetic, she’s often impatient to go on her walk. When she and I do go walking, I have to pay attention, because she’s only half-trained. At nine-months, Sweetpea already weighs 400 pounds, and she is strong in both body and spirit.
The other evening, Lena was helping me with Sweetpea, and she took a turn at leading her around the barnyard. I explained to Lena that managing a donkey is a question of will – donkeys are stronger than we are, and their big ears serve as radars to pick up even the slightest tremor in our self-confidence – then I handed Lena the lead rope.
A covey of quail flew up from the grass at the edge of the corral with a flurry of wings, and Sweetpea took advantage of the surprise to lunge in terror. Lena lost hold of the halter rope instantly, and Sweetpea proceeded to race around the pen, bucking and snorting, with the lead-rope dragging behind her like a purple snake. When Sweetpea calmed down, I picked up the rope.
I was a surprised at how easily Sweetpea had been able to break free – my daughter doesn’t scare easily – but then I remembered a traumatic incident involving a donkey in Lena’s early childhood.
When Lena was three, she had her first experience of a Mexican style birthday. It was a picnic at Palm Beach in Watsonville for her friend Saiya. Saiya isn’t Mexicana – her mother, Senai, is Japanese and her father, Mark, is German – but they’d met in Paraguay when they both worked for the United Nations. Spanish and English are their common languages. Watsonville is overwhelmingly Hispanic, so it was natural that little Saiya would adapt to local birthday customs.
Mark went to Happy Burro Market out on the edge of town, and selected a bright piñata from the display that hung from the ceiling above the brooms and mops. He could have chosen a chartreuse and orange Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle piñata, or a blue and red Spiderman piñata. But Saiya was more interested in animals than action heroes, so he picked out a classic donkey piñata, and bought enough candy to fill its round belly.
Mark and his brother hung the donkey from the overhanging branch of a eucalyptus tree in the middle of the picnic grounds that lie behind the beach. The piñata swayed gently in the breeze. The gray crepe paper strips that made up the donkey’s coat were nicely set off by the animal’s cream colored nose and belly. Black crepe paper made for a pretty mane and tail. The piñata donkey was dressed with a colorful paper saddle of red, yellow, green, and blue, and it even wore a little straw sombrero. Saiya, who was turning four, loved the piñata, and so did her five young guests, Lena, Lydia, Maija, Anwen, and Iliana. There were no brothers present.
When the time came to hit the donkey with a stick, it was difficult, because it was so beautiful. But the violence had to be done. The piñata always comes before the presents, and most importantly, before the cake. These little girls had never beaten a piñata before. When her papa handed Saiya a stout, dry stick he’d picked up from underneath the eucalyptus tree, she looked confused. He showed her how to swing it. Because the girls were so young, the parents present decided to forgo the typical custom of blind-folding the children when they struck at the piñata.
Saiya was the birthday princess, but she was a gracious hostess, so she let Lena go first. Lena missed the piñata on her first swing, and only grazed it with the stick on her second. On her third attempt, she struck a solid blow across the ribs of the donkey, and she turned to me with big eyes for a sign of approval. Lena had hit the piñata hard enough for it to swing in an arc on the end of its rope, but not so hard as to crack it. The donkey made a half turn in the air and came back at Lena like a pendulum, kicking her in the back of the head, and knocking her face-flat in the sand.
The other little girls didn’t have much luck either. It was the first party I’d ever been to where it looked like the piñata was going to win. The little gray donkey with the straw sombrero raged at the end of its tether like a rodeo bronco, and one girl after another bit the dust. Finally, Saiya begged her Uncle to do the deed. While the girls covered their eyes, he took up the stick and delivered a mighty whack to the paper donkey. The piñata’s belly finally tore open, spraying a rooster tail of brightly wrapped candies across the white beach.
The girls swarmed the sand like baboons, and minutes later, when they trooped off to the picnic table for the ceremonial unwrapping of the birthday presents, there was nothing left for the seagulls but a couple of pieces of red and silver foil that smelled like chocolate kisses. I guess the moral of the story is that no matter how sweet and lovely a donkey may appear, you always want to be careful when you’re around the business end of an ass.
copyright 2007 Andy Griffin