Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM APRIL 6 -12, 2022 UCW 7 Alas and alack. I have become part of the fake news. I was suck- ered into publishing information that clearly was not so. Mea culpa. I would fall upon my sword if that would help recapture the tarnished wonder that is this column. Way back in November 2021, I wrote an article about Doug, the World's Largest Giant Potato, based upon information harvested from the es- teemed British paper e Guardian. To summarize that column, Doug was a 17-pound potato found in a New Zealand garden by Colin Craig- Brown. Farmer Brown put a hat on Doug, gave him a Facebook page, and hauled him around town on a cart. Doug became an internation- ally known celebrity potato. e story was beautiful until it wasn't. Leave it to Jennifer Calfas of the Wall Street Journal to rain on Doug's parade. In a highly sourced recent article, Calfas blew the whistle on Doug. Tragically Doug turns out not to be a potato. He even was per- forming under an assumed name. e original story said his name was Doug, but it turns out his name is actually spelled Dug. Shame piled up on top of shame, like the Princess and the Pea. After inves- tigating Dug's genetic heritage, the "Guinness Book of World Records" pronounced him a mere "tuber of a gourd," more specifically known as a part of the Cucurbitaceae fam- ily. As Colonel Kurtz, a.k.a. Marlon Brandon, once said at the end of "Apocalypse Now," "e horror, the horror…." Dug, like many others who have submitted their DNA to 23 And Me, discovered, to his dismay, that who you think you are can turn out to be who you think you aren't. After a deep dive into Dug's en- doplasmic reticulum by Big Potato, the New Zealand Plant and Food Research Department, Dug was drummed out of the potato fam- ily, like Chuck Conners in the old TV western "Branded." Chuck was falsely accused of being the coward of the cavalry and booted out of the Army. Recall the Branded eme song: Dug was marked as one who ran/ What can you do when you're branded/ And you know you're a man (Or in Dug's case – a fake potato). It is unclear if there was a ceremony in which Dug's fake potato eyes were torn off, like Chuck Conner's epaulets in "Branded." (If you remember "Branded," kindly do not drive at night – you're too old to be on the highway after dark.) Calfas quotes Dr. Samantha Bald- win saying: "He just wasn't behaving like a potato should. We couldn't identify DNA sequences that are specific to potatoes." Not one to give up on a vegetable mystery, Bald- win sent samples of Dug across the world to the Science & Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) in Ed- inburgh, Scotland, for further study and advice. Once a would-be potato gets examined by the SASA, there is no holding back the truth. e SASA has ways of making you talk, which included Dug. SASA determined be- yond a reasonable doubt that Dug was no small potato with a giant ego but, in reality, was a gourd. When Farmer Brown learned the bad news about Dug's parentage, Calfas reports he said: "Initially we were both just gob smacked and quite deflated. … I felt, 'How can they say that about Dug? at's just blasphemy." Brown displayed his adeptness in rebranding Dug, telling the Wall Street Journal: "He's still the world's largest not-a-potato. I refer to him as Dug the Domina- tor from Down Under. My son said we should call him the 'Gourd Who ought He Could.'" Dug is present- ly in Brown's freezer for safekeep- ing. Dug is chilling in good compa- ny. Walt Disney's head is allegedly cryogenically frozen underneath Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disney- land. Baseball Star Ted Williams' head was frozen and last reported resting on a tuna can, waiting for medical science to resuscitate him. If it is good enough for Walt and Ted, it is certainly good enough for Dug. If Dug is resuscitated, he will be able to defend his good name and biological identity. If Dug says, he identifies as a potato and not a cucumber, who are we to question him? If Elizabeth Warren identi- fies as a Native American and Schuyler Bailar, the Harvard swim- ming champion, identifies as a trans-woman, who is to deny Dug's identification as a potato? Potatoes can make a hash of things. Former Vice President Dan Quayle got into trouble by misspelling potato as 'potatoe.' e ancient Chiffon margarine ad warned people that it is not nice to fool Mother Nature. It is equally dangerous and insensitive to fool a potato into thinking it is a cucumber. Once Dug is unfrozen and restored to health, if Dug says he is a potato and not a cucumber, it is incumbent upon us to wake up, smell the coffee, and treat Dug as a potato. Would be Tubers of the world, unite! row off your chains. Don't listen to the Man. As Ella Fitzgerald almost sang: "If you say potato/ And I say patahto / Let's call the whole thing off." Like a Viking, a potato by any other name would smell as sweet. To be, or not to be a potato by PITT DICKEY PITT DICKEY, Columnist. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200. OPINION Farmer Colin Craig Brown poses with Dug, a giant tuber, once thought to be the world's largest potato .(Photo courtesy of Pitt Dickey.) Join Hands... Become a Partner in Child Abuse Prevention! April is Child Abuse Prevention Month Please join hands with us and become a partner in child abuse prevention. To learn how, visit CACFayNC.org.