On the first Monday of each month, I do a Memory Lane Monday post.  Yes, I know we already have TBT and FBF, but I like the sound of Memory Lane Monday.  Plus today happens to be Monday and I had a memory today that I wanted to share, so there you go.  So let’s step it up, and head down Memory Lane…

Tomato season is at its height at our house right now.  We’re harvesting tomatoes daily by the bucketful.

This tomato is what spurred today’s memory.  About 9 years ago I retired from teaching, and that’s when I started vegetable gardening.  Here in Texas, we have a popular nursery chain called Calloway’s.  I think it was the second year of raising vegetables that I saw them advertise a tomato contest.  Completely on a whim, I decided to enter it.  I didn’t really know that much about gardening, so I didn’t expect to win.  It just seemed like a fun thing to do.

The contest was held on a beautiful Saturday morning.  I put my chosen tomato in a little box nestled in a bed of tissue paper and loaded it, my sweet mom, and her wheelchair into the car.  Off we went to Calloway’s.  Once there, we located the entry table, and I filled out my entry form and placed my tomato on the table with the others.  It was going to be another half hour or so before the judging, so I wheeled Mom around the nursery, and we enjoyed browsing around admiring and commenting on all the plant offerings and displays.  When it was close to judging time, we headed back to the entry table.  As we waited there with the other people entering the contest, we chatted with a few of them.  I learned that the same man took first place every year.  I don’t know how many years they had been holding the contest.  There were three different categories.  As I recall they were best-looking, heaviest, and best-tasting.  My jaw dropped when the judges announced my tomato as the best-tasting!

I kept my prize for a long time and had intended to picture it here, but I must have decided it was no longer important enough to keep at some point, because it’s nowhere to be found.  But I received a certificate for best-tasting tomato and a gift certificate to Calloway’s (don’t remember the amount).  Strangely, that was the last year they held the contest.  I’ve always wondered if it was because the fellow that usually won raised a ruckus or something, because that year he didn’t win in any category.

So it was a fun and interesting morning, and I went home with bragging rights.  Ha!  And this season when I picked the tomato pictured above, I thought to myself that if the contest was still be held, this beauty would be my prize tomato this year.