Dinner on their minds, homeward-bound motorists

welcome the sight of David Pope's vegetable stand on Ebenezer

Road just outside of Peachtree City.

Pyramids of vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh-picked from

Pope's truck garden, remind hungry commuters why they dread the

off-season of tasteless pink counterfeits on grocery shelves.

Homegrown squash, cantaloupes, and pole beans these are the

real thing, the raison d'etre for the kind of semi-rural life that

still throbs in hidden corners of Fayette County.

But even Paradise had its evil trespasser. David Pope looks

back at the passing motorists and wonders who has been stealing

his produce. Someone's purloining the potatoes, snitching the

squash, and offing the onions. Pope, you see, has what may be the

only honor-system veggie stand around.

The petty theft began last summer. "I can't sell stuff by

the pound, not being there to weigh it," he said. "But I do weigh

them in the morning to be sure I'm charging right, and I know

the tomatoes in the large baskets weigh over four pounds, the

small ones over two pounds, and I could tell they were taking a couple

of tomatoes off the top.

"Then one day I checked up and I was $15 worth short."

When he retired from driving for Consolidated Freight Lines

in 1994, he put up his little stand to sell his surplus to grateful

passersby. "I liked doing it," he reminisces. "I sat under the oak

tree the first year, then at the end of the driveway under the cedar trees

they were hot and I about burned up and then after they

widened the road and took down most of the trees, I set up under the

one tree that's left. It gives good shade."

After a couple of years, Pope decided to trust his customers

and spend his time growing more vegetables. He equipped the

stand with a stack of plastic bags and a box with a slot in it chained to

the huge spools he uses for counters. Carefully lettered signs

explain the prices, noting that checks are welcome.

He added a wistful reprimand to his signs: "Thou shalt not

steal. Bless all my good honest customers and forgiveness to the

thief," and "Thank you for being honest."

But in recent weeks, the forgiven thief got greedy and

tore out the farmer's little cash box with an estimated $60 in it.

Pope had been at the stand about 1 p.m., and the box was

there then. When he returned about 4, it was gone. "I was hot and

sweaty from picking, washing, and grading tomatoes, and then to find

that I was ready to just put up my chain [across the driveway]

and close up," he said, dejectedly.

He thought about a sign for the thief: "`If you can't afford to

buy, just go ahead and take what you want.' Then I thought, they

probably have more money than I have."

Pope, who was a Fayette County commissioner from 1973 to

1977, said he even considered a friend's advice that he put up a

closed-circuit television camera, but decided he really didn't want

to know. "A person that has to be watched isn't worth doing

business with," he said.

So for now, Pope's stand remains, offering seasonal

bounty at reasonable prices. The honor system cash register is still

in place. But something is missing. Some of the fun is gone.

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