Garden raids led to lessons learned — and earned

By RALPH STONE
MVI columnist

A couple of weeks ago, my story indicated that the Milky Way caper at Janosik’s Drug Store had taught me the lesson that you just don’t take or steal something that does not belong to you. Well, that was at least a partial truth since that incident was my final adventure in five-finger discounting. However, for a few more summers my youthful rationalizing indicated that this did not include one of the favorite Rambler activities of raiding gardens.
During many of the summer evenings of those wonder years, if we weren’t playing ball, involved in street games, or sinking our bodies into one of our favorite watering holes, we may have been actively raiding someone’s garden. Our favorite targets were found in those backyard tomato patches. It was, in fact, during those memorable escapades that I developed my lasting taste for southwestern Pennsylvania’s tomatoes. To this very day, fresh garden tomatoes and a few ears of corn make a complete, tasteful and satisfying meal. Of course, today I either grow my own tomatoes or purchase them from one of the several local farmers markets.

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