The oddball green tomato

I usually buy vine ripened tomatoes. Oh, I know, the “vine ripened” tomatoes ripen while boxed and in transit from wherever, probably Mexico. But, still, the idea of “vine ripened” is appealing, sorta like pigs raised outdoors — more natural, more freedom. The vine ripened tomatoes are smaller, but they are juicier, and a brighter red. They’re great in salads or my famous dagwoods.

When I saw this particular branching of “vine ripened” beauties, I just couldn’t resist. There were four nice luscious, red jewels, ready for eating; and one lone green fellow, all on the same vine. How did this happen? How could five tomatoes on the same vine, tucked away in their dark container, traveling by boxcar and motor freight, ripen four, but not the fifth? Was circulation cut off for the one? Was it a light issue? All five had to have the same conditions, the same genes.

Or was the fifth just a quirk of nature, one of those unexplained phenomenon that happen every once in a while and leave everyone asking, “Why?”

Why can one child out of a family be so strange, so different, so at odds; when the rest of the children are in-step, straight, so normal. “Normal” is a city in Illinois, you know, or a setting on the dryer between “Heavy” and “Light.”

It’s the odd ducks of this world who become the artists, musicians, actors, writers, doctors, lawyers and scientists, the creative types, the Einsteins and Beethovens, not in line with the rest of us, who chart a different path.

I felt drawn to this lone (lonely?) green tomato, an affinity, an identity.

I’ve always been sort of an odd duck, not really far out like this green wonder, but maybe more on the edge, vacillating between the norm and the avant-garde. It’s a difficult line to walk, the edge traveler — being Mr. Straight Arrow one moment, but having the ability to shift into goo mode when conditions warrant. A psychologist friend of mine once told me that not everyone can do that — shift from one mode to the other — that some people are locked in, stuck.