‘Daddy, Daddy!’ It’s Jon. He’s really excited. He’s harvested his potatoes.
‘Look at this one. It’s as big as the ones you see on the shelves in the store!’
He stands at the edge of his garden and holds up a potato. I wouldn’t say it’s huge. But it’s not small either. Not like the others.
Even so, even those small potatoes, are something else. They’re Jon’s potatoes.
And don’t tell Jon that those small potatoes are just small potatoes. No, they’re much more.
It’s that evening. He boils one potato and mashes it. This, his dessert. A fudge sundae isn’t as good.
After that, he’s in the bathtub. He claims it’s the first bath he’s had all year. (Don’t believe him.) He looks up at me.
‘Do you think I can grow potatoes in my ears?’ he asks.
‘Maybe,’ I say, scrubbing him with soap.
He puts his finger in his ear. ‘Then whenever I want a potato, I can just pull it out of my ear,’ he says.
This is Jon. He loves his garden. And this, really, is no small potatoes.
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