It’s been a long time, too long, since my last blog post. I was reminded of that this morning on a visit to Old Poway Park. My wife and I went to the park to attend a folk music festival and then visit the farmer’s market. We ran into an old acquaintance, Joe. He asked me, “How’s the writing going?” and reminded me that he’d bought and read several of my previous local history books and was a reader of my blog.

Joe is a farmer with a stand at the Poway market. He reminded me about how striking it was that beets were a big product in the town of Bernardo in the early 1900s. I had covered that in my book Once Upon A Town: Bernardo, Merton and Stowe.

One passage in the book reads:

” ‘Sugar Beets Prove Success at Bernardo,’ was the headline of an article in the San Diego Union on New Year’s Day, 1915. Twelve [railroad] carloads averaging about fifty tons to the car were shipped by U.S. Weaver,” read the article, which also listed a hay crop of 6,000 tons, 10.000 sacks of grain, and two to five carloads of honey coming from the community….”

Thank you, Farmer Joe, for your terrific memory. Thank you also for your work growing food for your family and for your community. I pledge to work with renewed energy in harvesting historical knowledge as you work to harvest your crops.