Memories of yesterday

[Fusion_power]

I'm starting this thread just to reminisce about some past times. Feel free to contribute anything you like.


In 2003, a guy from Minnesota showed up on gardenweb with a site selling tomato seed and potato sets plus a generous selection of other veggies and flowers. His business lasted about 2 years before mysteriously disappearing. I never found out what happened to him though I had a suspicion it was some kind of legal difficulties. He refers to himself as the "wise old owl".

He carried some unique varieties such as Augsberg Gold potato and several pepper varieties that are no longer available. I traded some seed with him and wound up with a few unique varieties such as Deacon's Gift tomato. It is a huge red tomato with very good flavor but as he said on his description, it is "ugly as original sin". To my knowledge, I am the only person who still has this variety though I did send Suze a few seed to grow for 2011.

If you would like to look at his website sans graphics, it is stored on archive.org here.

http://web.archive.org/web/200302060...saukriver.org/

DarJones

[troad]

Darell,

If you look him up at Daves Garden there are a couple of posts he made reviewing some tomatoes back in 2003. He signed his posts as "owlwrite" so I suppose that is the reference to a wise old owl. Further sleuthing shows he may be in Albany, MN.
It would be interesting to see if he is still around and has other unique varieties of tomatoes. I and many others here no doubt would like to try his tomato.
Maybe somebody here knows him as "owlwrite".

Len

[carolyn137]

I do remember him but not his real name and communicated with him via e-mail but I don't remember about what but no doubt about tomatoes. The tip off to me Darrel was the Sauk River on your link.

Here's another one I remember, also from older GW days and his name escapes me now but he's from Sacramento, CA., and I know that someone who posts here and elsewhere doesn't live that far from him.

His name for the game was MULCHING and he went on and on about it. mulch was so wonderful for anything that after reading some of his posts you'd think it could cure maleria and arthritis let alone BER, Foliage diseases, Root Knot Nematodes, lack of pollination, lack of fruit set, green shoulders, you name it. Anyone remember him?

There were some doozies I remember from the AOL TOmato Forum where I first started out in the late 80's but I don't think that any of you here with the exception of Alberta would remember Cajun PaPa who was close up with the major politocos in LA and was, really, an expert when it came to hot peppers. What a character.

I'll remember some others from the golden Years, ahem, of GW when I'm able to damp down my short term memory to bump up my long term memory, and we'll see if I can do that.

Well good heavens, how can we not remember the multiple name incarnations of chicken-man, last I knew it was up to 12, he tried Tville, but was banned rather quickly here as well as at other places as I recall.He sent me all of his HUGE tomato resource material references and I still have them. This hard drive goes back to about April of 2005 so I guess he was still alive and kicking at that time. Remember his picture of the tomato plant covered in snow?

[Tormato]

Deacon's Gift- Seeds for this variety were floating around about 2007/2008. Also, there was a thread about its origins, on the net, at about the same time. I had seeds at one time, but passed on trialing it, when I found out it was a red.

Tormato

[snappybob]

Gardenweb was the first gardening forum that I ever participated in. I used to post there quite a lot. There was a guy on there that lived in Dallas. I can't remeber his name but he was a retired police officer. I used to read his posts all of the time. He was a knowledgable gardener and always had good advice. We all began to notice that he had not posted for a while and some members did some digging and found his obituary in the Dallas paper. He had died of a heart attack. I was very mournful on learning of his death. I remember finding it somehow strange that I was having so much remorse over the demise of someone I had never really met. I woulndn't have known him had I passed him on the street but through this forum that I read daily on the internet I had developed a sort of 2D relationship.

[Fusion_power]

You may remember "gonefishin" who lived in Balch Springs TX. He was quite a character.

DarJones

[snappybob]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

You may remember "gonefishin" who lived in Balch Springs TX. He was quite a character.

DarJones

That was him, gonefishin.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by snappybob

That was him, gonefishin.

Fusion beat me to it and as I recall he was heavily involved with grafting tomatoes as well as showing lots and lots of pictures of his gardens.

No one remembers the mulch man?

[epiphanista]

I don't remember the mulch man. But certainly ol' chickenpoxman! He pulled angst behind him like a bull in the sled pull at the county fair...

[rxkeith]

i have fond memories of visiting my aunt catherine, and uncle steve when i was young.
he was my moms uncle. everyone in his generation were immigrants from sicily. he was the closest i had to a grandpa since both of mine were dead. he knew how to garden. my aunt would can the produce. i remember walking in his garden turning a corner and seeing something else growing spectacularly. we would go over there, visit, stay for dinner, and then play pinochle. we'd take a break, and have another feast, and finally go home early in the morning.
uncle steve showed me how to grow figs in michigan, and gave me some of his pole beans, and plum tomatoes that i grow to this day. it would be great to be able to go back in time and talk to him again. i have a lot more questions now.


keith

[lilhammerlane]

gonefishin....I remember...

[remy]

Originally Posted by snappybob

Gardenweb was the first gardening forum that I ever participated in. I used to post there quite a lot. There was a guy on there that lived in Dallas. I can't remeber his name but he was a retired police officer. I used to read his posts all of the time. He was a knowledgable gardener and always had good advice. We all began to notice that he had not posted for a while and some members did some digging and found his obituary in the Dallas paper. He had died of a heart attack. I was very mournful on learning of his death. I remember finding it somehow strange that I was having so much remorse over the demise of someone I had never really met. I woulndn't have known him had I passed him on the street but through this forum that I read daily on the internet I had developed a sort of 2D relationship.

I remember him too. I've lost a few cyber friends. You do mourn them. AkaPeggy used to visit the GW Veggie forum. We even traded seeds. She died of brain cancer much too young. I wrote to her husband once I found out she had died. He knew my name and knew how much she enjoyed chatting on GW. Katie88 was another GW trader who was fun to talk to and died too young. Then there was Bert/Spider who was on GW and here. We wrote to each other many times.
I feel I know some of my cyber friends better than I do people I see in real life.
Remy

[rxkeith]

does anyone know what happened to john smarz from down under. last i heard he had had surgery for prostate cancer a few years ago. we did some seed swapping in the past.


keith

[darwinslair]

For personal reasons I really do wonder what happened to "owlwrite" as he at least attempted to operate a seed company here in Minnesota. Minnesota, in its grand and infinite wisdom, instituted laws which purposely or not, destroyed most of the seed companies here. Many seed companies not in minnesota, if not huge, will not ship to minnesota due to the extra regulations and fees you are required to pay to operate here. I thought it would be a fun endeavor to do with my kids until I looked into it. You actually are required to give up your rights protecting you from unreasonable searches and the requirement for warrants to enter whatever premises you operate from. If you operate out of your home, that means 24/7, they can bust in on you and take anything they want to. Could not believe it when i read it, but explains the evaporation of seed companies here.

Tom

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by rxkeith

does anyone know what happened to john smarz from down under. last i heard he had had surgery for prostate cancer a few years ago. we did some seed swapping in the past.


keith

Keith, you might want to ask Patrina about John. John used to send some varieties to Neil Lockhart and the one I remember is Polish Pastel but when I looked at my 2003 YEarbook it was first listed in the 2003, Neil was listing it, but that was back 8 years now.

I also remember sending a huge number of varieties to Patrina for distribution to Aussie and NZ folks and they were supposed to let her know what each of them wanted, and I remember that John had a very long list.

In any case I know that at one time Patrina had his contact information and probably still does.