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Marijuana sweet potato may leave next fair
up in smoke
By Bill Whitaker
Here's a tip West Texas Fair judges and law enforcement can
store away for next year's fair: Think twice before arresting
Pat Minyard for growing marijuana sweet potatoes.
Sure, the leaves reportedly look like those on your everyday,
ordinary marijuana plant, but Pat insists (and, before it's all
over, he may even be required to swear so on a stack of Bibles)
the marijuana sweet potato has only nutritional value, no hallucinatory
properties whatsoever.
Then again, who in our area is going to admit smoking the leaves
off a strange sweet potato for hallucinatory purposes?
In any case, Pat says he'll be entering this rare sort of potato
at next year's fair. He says he's also entering the vine leaves.
We will see.
Meanwhile, fair officials are still astonished by Pat's entries
this year. Last week the gang judging fruits and vegetables at
the fair were impressed by a large coconut squash Pat entered.
He claimed this prize-winning squash could be used in anything
in which coconuts were ordinarily used.
This only prompted judges to lament Pat didn't serve up tasty
proof.
Only a day or so later, the Tuscola resident showed up at the
Modern Living Mall with -- you guessed it -- a coconut squash
chess pie. Only thing was, Pat wasn't sure whether to enter it
as a coconut chess pie or a coconut squash chess pie. As far as
taste goes, there isn't much difference.
"People like it," Pat told me. "You know, a
lot of people don't like coconut because they have to pick all
the shreds out of their teeth, but with this they don't have to.
There's no shreds."
A REAL PEOPLE-EATER
As for the dull white squash itself, Pat says it's a "real
delicate squash, and you cannot boil it. If you boil it, it will
disintegrate. But you can bake it."
Pat can't take credit for coming up with the idea of raising
coconut squashes himself.
"My wife teaches at Cooper High, and there was a lady
who also taught there, Louise Smith, and she'd come and get things
out of my garden. She noticed I liked to raise exotic things,
and she mentioned coconut squashes to me.
"She said they'd been raising them in her family 75 years
and that they could be used in place of coconuts."
Pat had good luck growing the squashes, with vines of 50 feet
or so.
"My wife said it reminded her of that plant that jumped
out and ate people," he said.
For the record, it was Louise Smith who told Pat about the
aforementioned marijuana sweet potato and suggested he plant some
in his acre-sized garden.
"They're great to eat," she said. "Yeah,"
Pat replied, uncertain of whether to even plant seeds for such
a thing, "but next thing they'll be out there burning my
garden!"
LOVE THOSE LLAMAS
If there was any other hit at this year's fair, the first-ever
open llama show might have been it.
But eclipsing even the llama show was "Tippy," a
most agreeable llama who proved its kind really do make good pets.
Folks from the South Central Llama Association made sure gentle-hearted,
easy-going Tippy met lots of folks from the Big Country.
I asked officials of the regional llama association what kind
of questions local folks had about Tippy and llamas in general.
"Well, they ask how big the eggs are," Jolie Potaracke
said.
"And they ask that with a straight face," Karen Conyngham
said. "Inevitably, emus enter into the conversation. It's
pretty interesting when people are standing there, looking right
at a llama. I mean, it would seem pretty obvious this is a major
mammal!"
Then again, maybe not.
Incidentally, younger folks at the fair seemed most open to
the idea of llamas as pets.
"But," one teen added at the thought, "my grandparents
would have a cow!"
JUST LIKE AN AGGIE
Reporter-News veteran Roy Jones, a confirmed University of
Texas tea-sipper till two of his offspring went off to Texas A&M
University, resigned himself to more humiliation last week, working
once again at the fair's famed Aggie french-fry booth.
But Roy, decked out in his Aggie french-fry apron and cap,
won more embarrassment than usual for himself, owing to the fact
he was one of many men strolling into the women's restroom near
the livestock arena.
That's right. After more than two decades, the restrooms were
switched this year, apparently part of efforts to clean up and
revamp Expo Center grounds and facilities.
When Roy walked into the women's restroom and found himself
outclassed, he made a hasty retreat, only to run into a sheriff's
deputy outside. The deputy only shook his head and smiled.
"You're not the first," the deputy said.
That made Roy feel better, but so did something else.
"For once in my life," Roy said, "I was glad
to be mistaken for an Aggie!"
Bill Whitaker, who is mistaken for neither a tea-sipper nor
an Aggie, no matter what restroom he strolls into, can be reached
at 676-6732.
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1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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