Dear David Pope:

I'm writing this as an open letter in hopes that I'm expressing the thoughts

of a lot of people who don't have access to a medium like this.

First, I want to thank you for the fresh vegetables you have shared for

years with your friends and neighbors and their number is greater than

you know. The location of your truck farm on Ebenezer Road just outside

Peachtree City makes it easy for many of us to stop by on our way to or

from the south part of town.

I don't know what pleases me more, the availability of good, fresh food

at reasonable prices or the fact that you ran your stand on the honor

system. Every time I wrote a check or dropped some bills into your lockbox,

I felt a real glow of satisfaction that business can still be transacted

that way. It was, each time, a reaffirmation of my belief in innate human

goodness.

Until this weekend, when my idealistic bubble burst and innate human evil

appears to have won the day.

A friend called with the stunning news that you had posted another of

your famous signs on the wall of your roadside stand, saying that you

had been ripped off once again and were closing the stand Labor Day weekend.

I had to see it to believe it, and dashed out to your place to stockpile

sweet corn, another cantaloupe, and some succulent tomatoes. Ever the

optimist, I decided to interpret your sign to mean you were closing just

for the holiday, but Beth said she thinks you mean you're shutting down

for good, worn out by the thievery.

I haven't the heart to call to ask you. I'm too afraid she's right.

David, let me tell you why your having that honor-system stand stocked

with our daily dinner is more important than you may realize. Certainly,

it is convenient but no more than Kroger, whose produce department offers

far more variety than you possibly could.

The difference is that the veggies on

your old spool tables, most of them, are mere yards from where they soaked

up the summer sun and whatever water you were able to deliver to them.

They have not spent the night in the back of a truck, nor required the

burning of fossil fuel to deliver them cross-country.

(Did you know?: On average, our food is flown, shipped, or trucked 1,400

miles from field to plate, according to the Rodale Institute. They estimate

that 10 calories of energy are expended to ship a single calorie to our

table.)

In a time when few kids know where their food comes from, parents can

bring them to small farms like yours, and let them see the connection

between earth and dinner table. At larger spreads like the Adamses, on

Highway 54 or Mickey Harp's place in south Fayette, children can experience

the bug bites and sweat and backache of harvesting the food that will

fill their tummies before sundown.

Sure, it's only a hint at the effort of farming, but it beats ripping

open a package from the freezer or cranking open a can. And tastes so

much better.

I hope this doesn't sound too "New-Age," but research suggests

that eating produce grown close to where one lives can actually confer

health benefits derived from the earth itself, reducing allergies and

digestive disorders.

David, I know from talking with you and by reading the plaintive signs

lining the walls of your little stand that your frustration with theft

has more than once driven you to the point of hanging a chain permanently

across your driveway. No one can blame you. And no one can blame you for

suspecting that much of the petty purloining of vegetables a handful of

beans, a couple of tomatoes off the top of a basket is being done by people

who probably make more money than you do.

I'm glad you have a decent retirement income, because I know you farm

now largely out of love for working the land. Keeping the roadside stand

open is about sharing with your neighbors, and their dishonesty is a slap

in the face for you.

How can we who appreciate your hard work and generosity help you to keep

the okra and squash and scuppernongs flowing? Is there any way our gratitude

can help balance your disappointment in your fellow man?

Might you consider keeping the stand open just a few hours a day, or one

day a week, and being there? That would stop the thievery and

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