My love and interest in growing tomatoes began at 30,000 feet, about three years ago with a seatmate and stranger who used to live in Knob Noster.
My seating arrangement for our flight to Los Angeles was next to 75-year-old David Smith, a frail, bearded man in faded jeans, sneakers and a long-sleeved plaid flannel shirt. Smith, a retired physical science and mathematics teacher traveling back to Lompoc, Calif., informed me that he couldn’t hear very well, and he couldn’t see very well either, so he carried a pair of small binoculars on his belt.
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