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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Your Community Handbook News, Views, Arts and Entertainment. Fayetteville's Community Newspaper providing useful information for you every week. www.upandcomingweekly.com 910.484.6200 Exploding Watermelons by PITT DICKEY “Hello, I must be going.” as Groucho once said. But now, unfortunately for the rest of you, it turns out I am staying in this, the best of all possible worlds. I had thought that last week’s Kook of the Moment, the Right Reverend Harold Camping’s late, great prediction of the end of the world on May 21 was going to come true. As I am among those who can only be classified as unrapturable, I planned to stick around for the tribulation. I was looking forward to watching the really good people of the Earth floating up into the Great Beyond. The reason I had thought Brother Harold was finally right this time was At least 115 acres of Chinese watermelon fields in the Jiangsu Province have been graced with exploding watermelons. due to a recent news item that at least 115 acres of Chinese watermelon fields in the Jiangsu Province have been graced with exploding watermelons. Once the watermelons start blowing up, can the rapture be far behind? As Petula once sang, “It’s a sign o’ the times.” If Petula sang it, I believe it and that settles it. Watermelons (citrullus lanatus) are not my favorite fruit or vegetable as the case may be. Personally, I find watermelons to be way too sweet for human consumption, sort of like the music of Donny and Marie Osmond or a picture of a cute kitten. If you have ever tried to deep fry a watermelon, you will find that doesn’t work out so well either. However I bear no personal enmity towards watermelons. They can go their way and I’ll go mine. Never the twain shall meet. Being both altruistic and unrealistically self absorbed, I did not think it was necessary for watermelons to blow themselves up just because I didn’t like them. That seemed extreme, but you know how sensitive some watermelons can be. After some investigation by the Chinese Agriculture Department, (and if you can’t trust the Chinese to investigate the safety of their food products, who can you trust?), it turns out that some Chinese farmers were giving their watermelon crops a little extra something to get them to grow faster. Maybe they were inspired by Lance Armstrong or were fans of Barry Bonds. We’ll never know because I can’t speak Chinese. The little something extra the farmers were feeding their watermelons is a tasty chemical called forchlorfenuron. Doesn’t that sound tasty? Forcholorfenuron, it melts in your mouth, not in your glands. Maybe forcholorofenuron does do some interesting things to your endocrine system, but heck, nobody lives forever. Just ask Brother Camping. What’s better on a hot summer day than a big old bowl of iced down Chinese watermelon garnished in a delicious glaze of Forchlorfenuron? With apologies to Leonard Bernstein, I was so inspired by the exploding watermelons, I wrote a song about them, to be sung to the tune of “Maria”, from West Side Story: “I just tasted a chemical named forcholorfenuron/And suddenly I found/ How wonderful a sound/ Can be/forcholorfenuron/Say it loud and there’s music playing/Say it soft and it’s almost like praying/Spray it on your watermelons/ And soon your customers in their graves will be laying/I’ll never stop saying forcholorfenuron/The most beautiful chemical I ever ingested/forcholorfenuron.” The Chinese will soon have the biggest economy in the world. Why shouldn’t they have the biggest exploding watermelons in the world? Only a year ago the Chinese government discovered beans that had grown to be a “yard long” due to regular baths in an illegal pesticide called isocarbophos. Apparently some sore heads in the Chinese Agriculture Department thought “yard long” mutant beans were even too much for the world’s fastest growing economy. Three and a half tons of “ yard long” beans were confiscated and allegedly destroyed. This terrible act deprived Chinese mothers from the fun of telling their children that “There will be no dessert until you eat your bean.” If you are afraid of a few Chinese chemicals, you can always go to a local American greasy spoon and order a bowl of butter, a veggie omelette with bacon and egg beaters with cheese. I have actually heard these items ordered in restaurants. The choice, like always, is yours. Bon appetite’. PITT DICKEY, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? editor@upandcomingweekly.com 8 UCW JUNE 1-7, 2011 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Up da t e I UPD nside A CUMBERLAND MA TTERS TE INSIDE FEBRUARY 9-15, 2011 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 06 Quacks Up Duck Derby Slated Fayetteville Bring Your Love Downtown I Love Downtown The Night They Invented Champagne Entertains Focus On Fayetteville INSIDE