THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9409300270
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: - Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Esther M. Roberts of Bells Mill Road has been growing her own vegetables since 1950.
The Bell's Mill resident is proud of the cornucopia of snap beans, salad greens and other aspects of Mother Nature's bounty she's coaxed out of Chesapeake soil for the past 40 years.
But recently she grew a gigantic tomato that has her scratching her head.
Roberts brought the monster 'mater to The Clipper office to prove she wasn't just bragging about nothing.
And it was a whopper.
The ripe, red hulk weighs in at 1 1/4 pounds and was grown from a vine in her yard that's more than 6 feet tall. But she isn't sure where the gigantic vine came from.
``I didn't plant it,'' Roberts said. ``It just came up and started growing by itself. I said, `I'm going to move you, plant!' but I decided to let it stay. It's still sitting out there now by the side of the chicken fence. It's the largest tomato I've ever grown. I've been watching it grow for the last two months.''
Roberts said the first thing she did was to show off the titanic tomato to Willie Townson, the ``fish man'' who runs a small business across the street from her house.
``He's the one who weighed it for me,'' she said. ``He said he was going to joke all the other men who come into his store to tell them that they can't grow anything as good as Mrs. Roberts.''
Roberts said she's going to show her tremendous tomato to everyone and anyone she can. After that, her course of action is obvious.
``When I can't show it any longer, I'm going to eat it,'' she said. ``When I do cut it up I'm going to give some to my sister in Camelot, then my husband and I will finish it. Ooh, it'll make such a good tomato sandwich.''
Before Roberts and her husband completely finish it off, she plans to salvage one other thing from the mystery 'mater.''
``I'm going to try to get some seeds from it,'' she said. ``I want to plant them and grow another big one.'' Not hooky, playing possum
A few days ago, several teachers and students at B.M. Williams Primary School on North Battlefield Boulevard noticed an unexpected visitor.
Trespassing on school property was a bright and healthy opossum, crawling all over the ``No Trespassing'' sign hanging on a tree near the school.
``Apparently he couldn't read and probably needs to be in school,'' said Dr. Patricia Powers, the school's principal. ``But we were stunned when we saw him. It was in broad daylight.''
Powers said the school's visitor was first spotted by a couple of children and teachers.
``We assumed he had a home nearby and that it was disturbed by the construction going on,'' she said.
The school is currently undergoing construction and renovation work. The curious marsupial appeared around the work being done on the school's old facade that faces Battlefield Boulevard.
``He was quite alert and ran around the tree,'' Powers said. ``A few teachers and children visited with him. We were all delighted by his appearance. We then we tried to convince him not to attempt to cross Battlefield's six very busy lanes of traffic.''
Powers said the school contacted the Chesapeake Animal Control Bureau and asked the officers to capture the opossum and move it to a safer habitat. They tried, but the gray-and-white critter was too high up his tree to reach.
``We saw him one other time after that,'' Powers said. ``We'll now keep our eyes and ears open to see if other members of his family should ever visit the school again.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DELORES MOYLER
Esther Roberts with her 1 1/4-pound tomato.
An opossum recently visited B.M. Williams Primary School on
Battlefield Boulevard.
by CNB