The rumor mill

Jack Deatherage

(4/2023) It was late September of 1987 when a former drinking companion asked if I'd heard about the biker and his whore who'd bought a house in Emmitsburg. A "lady of the evening" who used to sit next to me at the bar of a local drinking establishment immediately came to mind, given that I was a long-haired, bearded motorcyclist in those days. The "lady" had been letting the johns think I was her pimp, which slightly amused me as I sought oblivion in the bottom of a beer bottle. I wondered if the "lady" had found a real biker to back her business.

"No. Here in town?" Says I. "What house did they buy?"

Turns out it was the one the DW had settled on just a week or so earlier. I roared with laughter! So did the DW when I relayed the rumor to her.

"Welcome to Emmitsburg!"

The most current rumor about me isn't nearly as interesting. Evidently I'm a drug dealer, a rather boring occupation in this drug addled burg. Unless... could be someone who thinks sugar is a drug knows I've been building breads, cakes and cookies and gifting them to various people about town? The pill pushers used to hand out freebies at some of the parties I drank at in my youth. Ha. I gots news for the rumor mill, there ain't enough money in pushing bread and cookies to pay for the sugar, butter and flour! Or, more likely, I'm too stupid to figure out how to make the baked goods profitable.

Come on Emmitsburg rumor mill. Ya all can do better than this. Spice the story up a bit. Here, I'll get it started.

Did ya know I've conned the town government into letting me grow opium poppies on town property so I can slash the unripe seed pods and soak them in homemade mead and wine that I'll be selling out back of the firehall dances? Or how about the super-duperly high in THC pot plants I'll be getting the librarians to grow for me in the raised beds I spent nearly $400 on to get the community garden up and running? I'm going to mix the uber-potent leaves and buds into brownies I'll get the grade school kids to sell at their fund raisers.

Too unbelievable? How about claiming the bread, cake and cookie addictions I'm promoting are a plot to get people on diabetic meds the local doctors and pharmacies give me a cut of the profits of?

Ya all are boring me with your unimaginative rumors. Do better dammit.

And please do not take any of this as criticism of your godawful shallow and unproductive lives. I've taken on baking for friends and family because I enjoy experimenting with flours and yeast, and I've added building a new community garden because I have to do something between naps. I'm mentally and physically exhausted after a hard day's daydreaming about growing flowers. I need your gloriously buffoonish rumors to give me reason to chuckle now and again. I can't always be thinking about the next batch of rock candy cookies, bacon fougasse or lemon pound cake I promised a mechanic, a tattooer and a bunch of librarians.

I need to hear creative slanders! Hell, I live vicariously through other's ridiculous fantasizing about my truly mundane life.

Wiping tears from my eyes I return to reality- The garden. The metal raised bed kits are safely in our foyer. As I'm composing this column, arrangements are being made to purchase a garden mix to fill the beds. Can't say I got the exact beds I wanted, or the exact soil I'd planned to use, but circumstances and my impatience, dictated otherwise. Librarians need something in place before they can plan and advertise programs that will utilize the raised beds. I can't buy more seeds until we have a place to sow them.

It's possible three rototillers could turn up to help churn the in-ground garden plots. Worst case scenario, none of the machines show up and I have to use a broadfork to work up 30 feet of flowerbed and the smaller plots get pushed back until next year.

While the community I'd hoped to build before the garden hasn't materialized as quickly, the raised bed kits have. People are beginning to show interest in the project. People who are likely to get their hands dirty, or their children's hands. Guess I better remember to bring water to wash up with on raised bed assembly day.

Commish Sweeney mentioned some FFA (Future Farmers of America) high schoolers contacted him about getting involved in the garden project. Now that would be cool! One of my homesteading friends has been urging me to get in touch with the local FFA. In her high school in Texas the FFA kids had a greenhouse in the middle of the school's track field. The members would start seedlings they'd sell to local gardeners to raise money for other projects.

The possibility of the FFA getting involved opens a floodgate of ideas, none of which I should be chasing down rabbit holes because the group isn't yet involved and I haven't prepared a bed, let alone planted a seed. "Heel Jack! Heel! Good boy. Now sit. Siiit. Good boy. Here's a biscuit. Who's a good doggy?"

(distractedly picking and eating biscuit crumbs out of beard)

Eh-hem. Between naps and brakin- ummm baking- I've been ransacking the internet looking for interesting vegetables, flowers, fruits and shrubs to grow in the community garden. Having met exotic humans over the years since I moved into town; Indian, Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican, Salvadorian, Burmese, Lithuanian, Pole, Guatemalan, French, Irish, English, Blackfoot, Cree, Iroquois, Puerto Rican, New Jerseyite, Russian, Peruvian, Chinese, Iranian, Texan, Italian and possibly someone from Jimtown, I've been thinking about the plants they might recognize if they chanced upon them in the community garden.

'Odesa Market' calendula- "This diverse landrace calendula was collected in... Ukraine... "

'Chi Yei' eggplant "... an early, fast-ripening, delicious eggplant variety from China..."

'Haskorea' pepper "... seeds were originally collected in 1999 at the Bab al-Faraj seed market in the Syrian city of Aleppo by a USDA scientist and an official with Syria's Atomic Energy Commission..."

'Estonian Yellow Cherry' tomato "... Collected from an elderly Russian woman at a market outside of Tallinn, Estonia."

'Jacob's Cattle' bush dry bean "... One legend is that they were originally cultivated by the Passamaquoddy Indians in Maine."

'Montana Morado' maize "... was bred from 100% Native North American heirloom Indian corns, like its sister-line, 'Painted Mountain' corn."

'Uzbek Golden' carrot "This variety hails from Uzbekistan and is popular across central Asia."

'Manganji' sweet pepper "The famous and flavorsome sweet chili of historic Japan."

Nasturtiums "... With its spicy foliage and flowers, which give a nice kick to salad and recipes, it may be the best-known edible flower! Native to Peru..."

These varieties are barely a hint of what's available!

Maybe I'll get some of these planted before I blow a joint? The joint connecting the femur, tibia, fibula and patella. Not the one the rumor millers suck on. But hey. If the pungent smoke inspires an amusing rumor? Well let's hear it!