Pineapple

You get the feeling that
not much makes her happy.
And not much makes her sad.

But a lot of things
make her tired.
And a lot of things
make her laugh.

--Scott Squire, Iselton, CA.

He said this of our waitress at Pineapple, the old chinese restaurant in old Chinatown in Isleton, the night before we met Steve our Salmon fishing guide. She told us a couple stories, one about a group of fishermen who caught their limit early and brought the catch to her, saying they didn't want to stop fishing yet. They never came back, so she fed them to her family. And her family, oy! She has a little brother who refuses to marry his girlfriend because he doesn't want to move out. Our waitress has been taking care of him for forty years.

Scott and I vowed to bring her some fish if we caught any, and ask her to steam them for us. We stayed over night in a hotel above the towns loudest bar, and Scott spent most of it wrestling with window that the wind tapped against our wall.

We didn't catch any fish but I did glean some ripe pears from the Ryde Hotel golf course-that's a bad day of fishing.

To a Sinister Potato

O vast earth-apple, waiting to be fried,
Of all life's starers the most many-eyed,
What furtive purpose hatched you long ago
In Indiana or in Idaho?

In Indiana and in Idaho
Snug underground, the great potatoes grow,
Puffed up with secret paranoias unguessed
By all the duped and starch-fed Middle West.

Like coiled-up springs or like a will-to-power,
The fat and earthy lurkers bide their hour,
The silent watchers of our raucous show
In Indiana or in Idaho.

"They think us dull, a food and not a flower.
Wait! We'll outshine all roses in our hour.
Not wholesomeness by mania swells us so
In Indiana and in Idaho.

"In each Kiwanis Club on every plate,
So bland and health exuding do we wait
That Indiana never, never knows
How much we envy stars and hate the rose."

Some doom will strike (as all potatoes know)
When-once too often mashed in Idaho-
From its cocoon the drabbest of earth's powers
Rises and is a star.
And shines.
And lours."

Peter Viereck