I bought winter squash this week, first time it has gone "down" to $.99.  I used to buy it by the bushel from Mr. Rockefeller, when a bushel cost $5.00 and you had enough acorn and butternut squash to last a whole winter.  Mr. Rockefeller was a local farmer, an old guy that stopped his truck in front of our house the first summer we were living here.  He sold his vegetables freshly picked and at prices you would kill for today. 

I was used to this kind of sales, in Beacon we had Mr. Stanton, who drove a red truck with a loud horn.  He would park his truck, blow the horn, and the ladies of the neighborhood would come out to see what he had in his truck.  This was especially good for me when we lived at Beacon Street.  I had three little kids, and I didn't drive.  Mr. Stanton was a good businessman and kept candy and candy bars in the front seat to sell to children, so they would look out the window with joy when they heard his horn.  He also was kind to my downstairs neighbor, Helen, who suffered from a disease not yet named then....she couldn't leave the house.  He would even have a six pack of beer for her in the front seat.  Talk about convenience.  One year Helen and I bought a whole bushel of tomatoes from him to can....most of them were good, but the few bad ones made us leery when the jars exploded.  We complained to Mr. Stanton who just said, "You ladies must have done something wrong."

Anyway, I was glad to see a farmer at our new address and he told me I was one of his best customers.  I not only bought the two bushels of squash, but five bushels of potatoes for us, a bushel for Aunt Lillian and I always gave my sister Barbara a bushel of potatoes for her anniversary in October.  All winter long I would send one of the kids down to the cellar to get five potatoes and to pick out the squash I would cook for supper.

Time passed and Mr. Rockefeller began to show his age and then his weekly visits stopped.  When he died my kids were afraid to tell me, they thought it would be too depressing for me, and I did miss him.  Years have changed how we live, the store Adams is the closest thing I can place next to Mr. Stanton and Mr. Rockefeller.  But, it's not half, not a quarter as good as facing the man who grew the vegetables that you were buying to feed your family.  Farmer Markets are fun, but not as exciting as hearing that horn, looking out the window, and seeing the back of the truck loaded with freshly picked vegetables.