Tag: Canada

The Sound of Their Voices

 

A documentary retrospective called Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice has been making the rounds of film festivals this summer, most recently at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was a popular offering. Linda Ronstadt came to prominence in the 1970s covering songs in a style so distinctively her own that listeners could be forgiven for thinking the songs originated with her. Her first big hit, for example, was “Different Drum”, which she recorded in 1967 with the Stone Poneys. The song was first recorded by the Greenbriar Boys in 1966, and it was written in 1965 by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.

 

An interesting twist to the story of “Different Drum” being written by Michael Nesmith is that most of the Monkees own hit songs were written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. One hit for the Monkees, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, was written by another Brill Building songwriting team, Carole King and her husband at the time, Gerry Goffin. Those two wrote many hit songs for various artists during the 1960s, and after their divorce in 1969 Ms. King went on to a distinguished solo career singing her own songs.

CaroleKingHWOFDec2012
Carole King at the ceremony to receive her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2012. Photo by Angela George.

Her 1971 album, Tapestry, became an enormous success, enjoyed by both men and women, but it made its greatest connection with women who came of age in the 1960s, and in the 1970s were staking claims to have their voices acknowledged and heard independently of men. The female singer-songwriters of the 1970s enjoyed popular and critical success in a music industry dominated by men, and despite the obstacles, such as male promoters encouraging them to push their sexual allure ahead of their singing and songwriting talents, they persevered and became strong, independent voices.

In this 1974 episode of the television show The Midnight Special, Melissa Manchester performed “Midnight Blue”, a song she co-wrote with Carole Bayer Sager, an alumna of the Brill Building. Ms. Manchester released an album including “Midnight Blue” the following year, and the song became her first hit. It takes skill and artistry to sustain intensity and interest in a slow song, as Ms. Manchester did beautifully in this rendition.

The list of women who made indelible marks in the popular music of the 1970s is long and would inevitably leave out some names. Not all of them wrote the majority of the songs they made famous, but in the song choices they made they exhibited an independent spirit. Linda Ronstadt, for instance, as she expanded her repertoire to include the Great American Songbook, chose songs that reflected character, strength, and respect. Melissa Manchester, who learned songwriting in a course taught in the early 1970s at New York University by another Brill Building alumnus, Paul Simon, had several hits with songs she co-wrote, and has also been a song stylist like Ms. Ronstadt and has followed a similar path since the 1970s and ’80s with distinctive renditions of standards.

Carole King’s Tapestry, with its well-known cover photo of her, barefooted and wild-haired, on a window seat with her cat, started out a decade of great music from female singer-songwriters with songs that eventually became standards themselves, covered dozens of times by other artists, male and female. Incidentally, that famous cover photo was taken by Jim McCrary at Ms. King’s home in Laurel Canyon, outside Los Angeles, and in the 1970s Laurel Canyon became the locus of much musical talent, and especially singer-songwriters.

In a 1993 concert at Bushnell Hall in Hartford, Connecticut, Carole King performed “You’ve Got a Friend”, one of the several hit songs from her 1971 album, Tapestry.

The decade closed with Linda Ronstadt, another inhabitant of Laurel Canyon in the ’70s, as the most successful female rock and pop singer of the time. Singing out throughout the time in between, and whether coming from the cramped quarters of the Brill Building in New York City or the openness of sunny southern California in Laurel Canyon, were Melissa Manchester and dozens of others every bit as talented, and all with new and interesting statements to make, creating music that expressed their unique times and has lasted beyond, affirmation of their skill and artistry in giving voice to their experience.


— Vita


A story from a February 2019 edition of the television magazine show CBS Sunday Morning.

 

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Straining to See

 

Many folks may remember that as children they were admonished by their elders not to sit too close to the television because they would strain their eyes. If a child was a reader, a parent or other elder would express concern that the reading light wasn’t bright enough. If a child read in bed after lights out, then a concerned elder would issue a warning of punishment for staying up too late, in addition to concern about eye strain. Of course, this scenario is dated because children today may be reading from a backlit screen instead of a paper book. New technology, same worries about eye strain.

Looking at computer and phone (Unsplash)
View from a street in Toronto, Canada, into a building where a woman looks at her laptop computer and smartphone. Photo by Tim Gouw.

Asthenopia is the medical term for eye strain, and in a chronic case the condition can be a concern worthy of a visit to a doctor. With the prevalence of computer, tablet, and smartphone use now, adults are as apt to have asthenopia as children who don’t heed their parents’ warnings. Few people admit to reading from their smartphone or tablet in bed after dark, but most probably do it, because for one thing it’s an easy way to read without disrupting a partner’s sleep, even if it may disrupt their own sleep habits. Looking for hours at a time into a relatively bright light from a foot or two away, or perhaps mere inches, is a sure path to eye strain.

Other than changing behavior, the solution starts with turning down the brightness on all those screens, including the television. Most devices now come with sensors that detect room brightness and adjust the device brightness accordingly. A darkened room will require less brightness from the device in order for the user to comfortably view the screen. Find that control and use it. Next, devices made specifically for reading at close range, such as smartphones and tablets, may have a “Reader” mode in the display settings. Find that and turn it on. Some internet browsers also come equipped with a “Reader” mode.

Finally, if those native adjustments are insufficient to tone down the blue part of the spectrum, which is the part most responsible for causing eye strain, then seek out a third party application for computers, smartphones, and tablets that will shift the color temperature from blue to red, with many degrees in between. Such applications have timers built in order to shift the color temperature gradually as day moves to night, and vice versa. They take some getting used to, but after a day or two the warmer color temperature will feel natural and less noticeable. Your eyes will sense the difference, though, since they will no longer be asthenopic, a word which is such a strain to pronounce it’s just as well you no longer have to deal with it.
— Techly

 

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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

 

People living in the eastern half of the United States are used to hazy conditions in the summer, which are typically caused by high humidity. Large amounts of water vapor in the air diffracts sunlight, creating haze. “Hazy, hot, and humid” is a typical summertime forecast for the eastern half of the country. This summer, however, and particularly in August, conditions are even hazier than usual, bringing on for some people respiratory distress symptoms such as watery eyes, runny nose, and congested lungs, and even aggravating heart problems. For the answer, look to a record summer wildfire season all the way on the other end of the country, in California, Oregon, Washington, and some other western states, as well as western Canada.

 

The prevailing winds at northern hemisphere mid-latitudes move west to east, of course, and there is so much smoke being produced by fires in the west this summer that not even the Rocky Mountains present enough of an obstacle to block the progression of all that smoke across the country to the midwest and then to the east coast. Most of the smoke has stayed to the north, with some drifting into the mid Atlantic states and very little making its way into the south. Besides promoting unusually hazy skies for all and respiratory distress for some, the smoke has created intensely red sunsets and high rainfall events, all because of the extra particulates floating in the atmosphere.

Holy Fire August 10, 2018
Smoke plume from the Holy fire in Orange County, California, on the morning of August 10, 2018. Photo by Shannon1.

The situation for people living in the west is dire not only on account of the great amount of smoke but because of the threat to life and property posed by the fires. Naturally the effects of the wildfires are at their worst closest to the flames. For people in the eastern half of the country, who may not give the fires even a second thought after hearing about them on the news, there are nonetheless effects that they may not attribute to the western wildfires simply because they are very far away. The situation in the east is analogous to the effects of a far off volcanic eruption such as from Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, or possibly the continental effects of the Dust Bowl in 1930s America. In those cases, dust and very fine particles drifted over the eastern United States as well as other places around the world and affected air quality and with it, the weather.

It’s easy to shut the windows, turn up the air conditioning, and pretend what’s happening in the greater world has no effect locally. That denial doesn’t alter the fact that the greater world does affect people, plants, and animals in their local environment. The butterfly effect is indeed a real thing, as anyone can observe simply by opening their eyes. In the eastern United States, where wildfires have not caused major inconveniences for most people this summer, it may be easy to shut the windows and thereby shut out the smoky haze drifting in from the west, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there hanging around, changing the weather day to day on account of the changes in the climate year to year.
— Ed.

 

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Build Bridges, Not Walls

 

Anyone who has ever been driving and had a collision with a deer or other large animal knows just how devastating it can be for the animal as well as for the driver and any passengers, besides the damage to the vehicle. Every year millions of animals die in collisions with vehicles, though of course only estimates are available on that number, and damage to vehicles comes to over eight billion dollars. The best method for reducing both those numbers appears to lie in building ways for animals to cross roads safely.

 

France led the way in the 1950s, building overpasses and underpasses for animals to use in crossing busy highways. Other European nations followed, and then Canada and the United States. There is still much to be done in all those countries, and even more in the rest of the world. The animals have a hard enough time navigating a world dominated by people, and they should not also have to risk death in the simple act of trying to get from point A to point B. People do it every day without serious thought of not returning home safely from their journey, though all the other drivers on the roads don’t always make it easy on account of their distractions and reckless behavior.

Axis axis crossing the road
A spotted deer crosses a road near a “Wildlife crossing” sign in Nagarhole National Park in India. Photo by Chinmayisk.

25-Orient Beach State Park
Wildlife crossing warning signs portraying a deer, a fox, and a turtle, in Orient Beach State Park in Orient Point, New York. Throughout the country, signs like this are  often pockmarked by blasts from the firearms of people who pass themselves off as wits. Photo by DanTD.

It makes even more sense to build more safe wildlife crossings when considering it is in our own self interest. A high speed collision between your vehicle and a deer will kill the deer either instantly or harm the deer grievously enough it will die later in great pain, and the collision will also cause thousands of dollars of damage to your vehicle and possible injuries to yourself and passengers, if any, adding up to thousands of dollars in medical expenses, as well as psychological trauma which may make you justifiably jumpy behind the wheel of an automobile from that point on. All this is obvious, and old news really. Why then wouldn’t highway departments across the country do more to mitigate this kind of thing?

A certain kind of person might view a wildlife crossing, be it an overpass or an underpass, and think “Look at all the money the highway department threw away just to protect some stupid animals, probably because a bunch of animal loving tree huggers wouldn’t shut up about it until they built it.” No, the wildlife crossing isn’t there solely for the sake of the animals, and whether a group of people this certain kind of person is contemptuous of pushed for the project is besides the point. The wildlife crossing is there for everyone, for animals to use and for people of every political persuasion to admire as they motor along more safely than they did without it. It is there to save everyone’s lives, and in the case of people it is there to save the treasure they care very much about, possibly more than the well-being of other creatures on this Earth. It is way past time for that certain kind of person to ask who is really the stupid one when it comes to how we cope with animals crossing the road which, as we all know, they will do come what may.
— Izzy

 

 

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Heaven Smells of Bread Baking

 

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.” — M.F.K. Fischer (1908-1992)

Supermarkets are often not the most appealing places, despite the efforts of the owners to entice buying by using attractive layouts and presentations, but the one biggest sales pitch they can offer is a byproduct of their work, and it is the alluring smells emanating from the bakery section, early in the morning especially. It is an amazing occurrence that in an otherwise stale, uninteresting place, the aroma of bread baking should catch our noses and take us to a comforting place of memory or imagination and draw us toward it, if not to buy, to at least inquire of the baker what is in the oven at the moment that is wafting toward us such heavenly smells.


Bread-Baking (Charlotte Mannheimer) - Nationalmuseum - 21782
Bread-Baking, an 1895 painting by Charlotte Mannheimer (1866-1934).

The sense of smell is more closely and directly tied to the sense of taste and of memory than are the senses of vision, hearing, or touch, and that is understandable when we consider that it is a chemical sense which cuts to the essence of things quickly. No one, after all, has suffered intestinal distress from eating something merely because it looked unappetizing. Should I eat this? It looks okay and doesn’t feel strange other than being a bit soft, and of course it doesn’t sound like anything, but it smells a little off. No, I will not eat it. Useful information to have before putting the substance in one’s mouth and possibly ingesting something sickening. It’s why smell is tied so closely to taste that people who have lost the sense of smell, as can happen in old age, also lose the sense of taste, and therefore appetite.

Why smell and memory should be linked tightly together is more of a mystery. An American who has visited France and smelled the aroma of freshly baked baguettes might have memories of that visit elicited unbidden simply by walking past an excellent bakery in this country early in the morning as various breads are baking in the shop. The nose will pick out the one particular smell and, with its direct link to memory, evoke that long ago trip anew. What evolutionary purpose could that serve? It perhaps rings back to a time when we weren’t the highly visual creatures we are now, and instead relied on smell to tell us whether something we were encountering currently had positive or negative connotations in our memory.

Bread for sale at Granville Island Markets
Freshly baked bread for sale at Granville Island Markets in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Photo by Schellack.

It’s helpful to realize that the connection of the sense of smell with the brain takes place at the core level, whereas the sense of sight was layered onto the brain later in our development. That should also help explain why the inextricable connection between smell and memory often eludes our ability to describe it in language, a much later cognitive development even than sight. Smell, it seems, bypasses our more sophisticated powers and goes directly to our emotions, the core of our animal being that we share with millions of other creatures on Earth. When we smell good bread baking, we don’t need to intellectually analyze our reactions our wax poetic about it, describing the situation in a million flowery words, because our brains, nervous systems, and our entire bodies take care of telling us what we need to know. For many of us, our involuntary reactions of mouth watering and imagining of savory yellow butter melting into warm slices of bread will lead us into the shop to make a purchase, staving off for the day the hunger of the beast within us, and rewarding us with pleasant memories for days in the future when that heaven-sent smell wafts our way again.
— Izzy

 

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Not All That Clear-Cut

 

An owner of a new house on a lot where the builder saved one or more mature trees, rather than clear-cutting the property prior to construction, may be dismayed after a few years to see some or all of those trees dying back from the tops of their crowns. The homeowner may never make the connection to soil compaction caused by heavy construction equipment running over the root zone of the trees and how that adversely affects them all the way to their tops. Typically soil compaction damage to roots of large trees takes several years to show up, and by then the realtor, the developer, and the builder have moved on, taking with them the extra money engendered by the higher value sale of a house lot with mature trees. Sometimes those parties are themselves ignorant of the horticultural damage, though they really should educate themselves.

 

Roots encased in compacted soil have difficulty growing through it in search of nutrients, they may have been crushed or otherwise injured during the initial period of insult, and they may rot from sitting in water because compacted soil does not drain well. After a few years of this, the constricted roots can no longer push nutrients and water to the top of a large tree, and the top dies back. Sometimes the shortened tree continues living, although it may never be as vigorous as it was prior to construction. A tree with a restricted, sickly root system is also susceptible to toppling in a storm, the same as if its roots had been rudely shortened in a trenching operation. Suddenly that gloriously arching old oak tree providing shade and grandeur for the house 10 or 20 feet away is no longer an asset but a risk haunting the homeowner’s property. Removing the tree safely before it topples and causes catastrophic damage to life and limb is an expensive proposition.

RaccoonFamilyInCherryTreeAtNight
A mother raccoon and her four kits eating cherries from a suburban backyard cherry tree at night in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Raccoons have proven highly adaptable to habitats modified by humans, moving from the wilderness to the city and everything in between. Photo by AndrewBrownsword.

Unless the builder is serious about protecting the roots of trees on a house lot by cordoning off an area extending at least as far the drip lines of the trees and not running heavy equipment there, excavating there, or piling soil there, then it would be better to cut the trees down and start fresh with new plantings once construction is complete. A similar policy applies to clear-cutting trees from a woodland, though many people who are adamantly opposed to the practice may not want to hear it. As long as trees need to be cut down for timber to build houses and for pulp in the manufacture of paper products, there are only a limited number of ways of going about it. There are ways that are heedless of the surrounding environment, such as cutting trees around water bodies and on slopes without regard to controlling erosion, and there are ways which take into account the land’s recovery, such as leaving trees standing in riparian buffer zones and leaving behind some slash – material like branches and hollow logs – to help control erosion.

 

Logging in the Ochocos circa 1900
A logging scene in the Ochoco Mountains, Crook County, Oregon, circa 1900. Logging without heavy mechanical equipment was lighter on the land, but little consideration was given at the time to erosion control, reforestation, or lowering the impact of road construction. This photo is part of a collection at the Bowman Historical Museum, Crook County, Oregon.

Why not leave some mature trees standing here and there throughout the logged area? For the same reason of soil compaction that confronts the house builder who has to take extraordinary measures to sufficiently protect the roots of mature trees in order to preserve them, rather than just going through the motions. A clear-cut area often looks like a moonscape for a few years until new growth takes over, and its appearance would no doubt be improved by a remnant of mature trees, but ultimately a sensitivity about appearances may not prove to be in the best interest of the trees themselves. Ultimately where logging has to be done to provide the paper products and building materials nearly everyone uses, it may be best to get in and get out, employing best practices to control erosion, perhaps repairing soil compaction where possible, and then either replanting or allowing the land to regenerate new growth on its own. After that, leave the land alone for a generation or more. Hand-wringing about the removal of trees may be a satisfying demonstration of environmental sensitivity, but unless it is accompanied by an understanding of best practices in pursuit of necessary economic activity, it is best not undertaken by those living in wood houses.
— Izzy

 

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Powering Down

 

A strong nor’easter – or northeaster, if you prefer – is causing havoc along the east coast from North Carolina to Maine and into Canada to kick off the first weekend of March 2018. Nor’easters typically occur in the colder months, almost always in the eastern third of the country, though occasionally slightly farther west, as in November 1975 when a storm whipped up Lake Superior, sinking the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, and they can be as destructive as hurricanes when taking into account the wider swath and longer duration of a nor’easter over a hurricane. Blizzards with heavy snowfall, downpours and consequent flooding, beach erosion, and power outages and damage to houses, businesses, and infrastructure from gale force winds, all can be attributed to nor’easters.

 

The winds of a nor’easter never reach the highest speeds of hurricanes, but even 30 and 40 mile per hour winds in winter can cause trees and tree limbs to topple onto overhead power lines. The ground does not dry out as quickly in winter as in summer, and that can make the difference between a tree staying upright in high winds or falling over. Add the weight of snow and sometimes ice, and not only tree limbs and trees fall, but even utility poles may snap off at ground level. It’s not uncommon then to hear reports during a strong nor’easter, such as the one currently blowing along the upper east coast, of millions of utility customers being without power, sometimes for days.

WinslowHomer-Eight Bells 1886
Eight Bells, an 1886 painting by Winslow Homer (1836-1910).

After every particularly bad storm that causes massive power outages, many people want to know why in this country most of the power lines are still above ground, where they are vulnerable to storm damage. They want to know why more of the lines aren’t buried, seemingly out of harm’s way. The blizzard of 1888 brought New York City to a standstill, and the effect was that city leaders made a determination afterward to start placing essential services underground, in particular building a subway system to help city inhabitants keep moving no matter what the weather. Putting in new facilities at a time when the city was still in the process of being built out to its full potential turned out to be not as disruptive and expensive as it would be today, now that every square mile of Manhattan real estate has something already built on it.

 

Alley behind Connecticut Avenue, N.W. - Blizzard of 2010
An alley behind Connecticut Avenue, N.W., in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., with power lines weighed down by heavy, wet snow from the blizzard of February 2010. Photo by AgnosticPreachersKid.

Developers building new upper middle class subdivisions sometimes put the power lines underground because those developments can absorb the extra cost, typically 10 times more than overhead lines, and because the pleasing aesthetics and perceived security of underground lines enhance property values. There are drawbacks, often overlooked, such as the vulnerability of any overhead lines feeding into the new development, and the increased time and expense for power company crews to locate and fix compromised underground lines. One of the ways an underground power line can become compromised is through flooding, in which water or even water vapor will find its way into any vulnerability in the line’s sheathing and short out the line. Lines are usually buried from 24 to 48 inches deep, which in most cases is deep enough to insulate them from digging accidents and the soil water pressure of ordinary rainfall. In floods, however, the soil can become so waterlogged that pressure builds high enough to force its way in toward the power line.

There is no one absolute answer to lessening the risk of losing power during a storm, other than to disengage from the power grid entirely. For those who remain hooked in to the grid, some peace of mind can be had by purchasing a portable generator or installing a standby generator. Power companies should put more of this country’s grid underground in spots where the benefits can be greatest, leaving the rest of it above ground where the costs are prohibitive. Utility customers may wail once again about all the damaged above ground lines once this latest nor’easter has moved on out to the open ocean, but they often quiet down once they hear how much their power bill would have to be hiked and for how long in order to pay for putting the service below ground. The people who have it worst in some ways during a storm and for days or weeks afterward are the power company workers who have to be outside in dreadful conditions doing what is a dangerous job even in sunny, balmy weather, and is many times worse in soaking rain, blowing snow, pelting ice, and winds that could throw anyone off course.
— Vita

 

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To Every Thing There Is a Season

 

People enjoy their home grown tomatoes so much more than store bought that they try to extend the growing season and stretch out the harvest. The primary limiting factor is the weather, and secondarily the genetics of tomato varieties. Tomato plants prefer temperatures between 55 and 95 degrees, and in most of the continental United States that means they do their best between June and September. Summer is their season. Genetically, full-sized tomato plants, as opposed to dwarf or cherry tomato varieties, fall into two groups – determinate or indeterminate. Determinate plants grow to a certain point, set fruit, and then are done for the season. Indeterminate plants continue growing and setting fruit throughout the season.

 

There are conditions and variables to all these factors, and they play an important part in seeing that, hard as a gardener may try, most of their tomatoes will ripen over a shorter period than plant information tags would have them believe. Plant tags give maturation dates for the tomato varieties they describe. They are only rough guides, not to be taken at face value! Too many gardeners believe the tags and think that by planting tomato varieties with as wide a spread of maturation dates as possible they will be ensured a lengthy harvest season. Not necessarily! The weather plays the biggest part in dictating when you will get ripe tomatoes and over how long a period. The next most important factor is whether the plant is determinate or indeterminate, since determinate varieties will almost always be the first to fruit and the first to stop bearing. The maturation date on the plant tag is the least reliable factor and is nearly useless.

 

Lufa Farms Strawberry Tomatoes
Strawberry tomatoes at Lufa Farms, the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouses, in the Montreal, Canada, neighborhood of Ahuntsic-Cartierville; photo by Benoit Rochon.

Some gardeners think that by staggering the planting dates of their tomato plants they will stagger the harvest dates as well. Not necessarily! Again, the weather is the most important factor in how quickly or slowly your tomato plants grow. Plants started later in the spring will often catch up to ones planted earlier. Plants started too early in the spring will often sit there and do nothing until the weather warms up. You can’t fool Mother Nature!

The best way to lengthen the growing season, and therefore the harvest, is to make use of either a cold frame or a greenhouse, or both. Of the two, a greenhouse is the better option because it is ultimately more useful. A cold frame is useful mainly for starting plants, though it can also be used for low-growing vegetables and fruits like lettuce and strawberries. A greenhouse should be tall enough for fully grown tomato plants, even when they are in raised beds. A greenhouse is not a hothouse. A hothouse is, of course, heated. That would be stepping up another level in expense and trouble, which for a home gardener with a ten by twelve foot greenhouse would make every tomato unnecessarily expensive. No, a simple and inexpensive home greenhouse is primarily useful for extending the growing season from summer into spring at the front end, and autumn at the back end.

Roger Cook of This Old House helped this Mississippi homeowner build an inexpensive backyard greenhouse. At the end, Mr. Cook tells the homeowner he should be able to grow vegetables year round in the greenhouse. Since the greenhouse will be unheated, year round use would be possible in Mississippi, most of which is in winter hardiness zone 8a. Use in your location may be limited to three seasons.

There are home greenhouse kits on the market, and a gardener could spend over 1,000 dollars for a nicely appointed one. The very cheap ones are not worth even their low price, and will cause you more trouble than they’re worth. The greenhouse depicted in the This Old House video here is a solid, utilitarian model that should cost less than 500 dollars. It won’t win any awards for looks, but that would probably present an obstacle only for homeowners association members. One suggestion to improve upon the construction method in the video would involve using weather stripping or batting between the plastic and the staples to distribute the force of the plastic against the staples, reducing the chances of the plastic tearing loose in the wind. 1/2 inch staples would hold everything well, and to reduce frustration a quality staple gun is a must. As with a tarpaulin or any other lightweight material used outdoors, the plastic needs to be stretched tight to lessen its movement in the wind. After all that work and expense, you can look forward to a longer tomato harvest season, and to tomatoes that don’t cost a small fortune. You may even save a few dollars over the long haul, though it might be a stretch to say you could pay off your mortgage early, the way Radiator Charlie of West Virginia did with his ‘Mortgage Lifter’ tomatoes back in the 1940s.
― Izzy

 

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