The Fruit that Changed the World

'Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today'

songwriters: Frank Silver and Irving Conn

As a song lyric, that's a catchy line, but I wouldn't want to hear it from a vendor when I'm intent on buying a bunch of my favorite fruit. Today there may be no bananas, but it is a good day for a more lighthearted posting. 

Since 2016 my posts focused on hot-button issues gnawing at me, none lighthearted: US immigration policy, Covid-19, food insecurity, and the small matter of the pending 2020 election, billed to be the most critical and contentious one of our times. But as November's results unfolded, I felt uplifted, then ecstatic. Despite POTUS 45's continued flailing and failing attempts to undermine the expressed will of the majority, and regardless that less than ten percent of GOP congresspersons have publicly acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden's win or have even called to congratulate him, Joe will be installed as forty-sixth president on January 20, 2021. A breath of fresh air is poised to take the uptown express to Washington. Granted, reason for grave concern remains. The pandemic's tentacles hold us in a tight grip. The choke hold will become even tighter as winter drives everyone indoors, but vaccines are arriving signaling the glow of a flickering light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Ergo, spinning this tale about my favorite fruit, the banana, no longer has to wait for a brighter day.

Banana, a favorite fruit? You may snicker but aside from my taste preference, there's a great story here. Did you know Eve's 'apple' might actually have been a banana? Or that Central American 'banana republics' rose and fell over the crop, and companies now known as Chiquita and Dole were like Apple and Google of their time? Then there's America's Banana King, Samuel Zemurray - his is a saga of intrigue à la James Bond creator Ian Fleming. The plot weaves together CIA covert operations, Guatemala's civil war, mercenaries, Fidel Castro, US power brokers such as Richard Nixon and CIA operative Howard Hunt, and the deciding vote cast at the UN in 1947 partitioning Palestine into two states. Lastly, there's the race from the jungles of Costa Rica to high-tech labs to save banana plantations across the globe threatened by a blight with no cure in sight.

Out of that whirlwind, I can draw a straight line from dinner at a basketball buddy's house in Framingham to the checkout line at BJs in Stoughton.

Here's the linkage ...

"What'll you have to drink?", my buddy Marc queried as he stood behind his impressive wet bar, a nice little amenity in his newly acquired home. 

    So I'm thinking a Malbec or Sauvignon Blanc, or maybe going straight for my go-to hopped brew, an IPA. That thought bubble quickly popped. Instead of bottles to uncork or de-cap, from under the counter Marc pulled assorted plastic baggies of cut up fruit, some ice, and a juicer. As savvy as I was about his perimeter jump-shooting accuracy, little did I know Marc was a teetotaler; he was also into health food. 

    "Do you want red, blue, or yellow (strawberry, blueberry, or pineapple), or a combination?", he asked. Realizing when in Rome, do as the Romans, I went with the flow and opted for blue. Then out from the freezer came the pièce de résistance, a gallon bag of peeled, ripe, frozen bananas - Marc's secret ingredient.

As expected, the smoothy didn't leave me with an enjoyable buzz. On the other hand, it was really, really good. The bananas gave the drink a frosty sweetened nuance, and I was captivated. Since Marc always froze them at peak of ripeness, no matter how many were piled in his grocery cart, they never went bad - they went to the freezer. He also ate them straight up, claiming if you closed your eyes you'd swear you were eating banana ice cream. He was right about that and I went straight from intrigued to hooked. From that point on, I knew one could never have too many bananas on hand.  

Fast forward to BJs ....

She was multitasking while on the job ... and she couldn't help herself. While dutifully scanning in prices for a customer's selections, her eyes kept shifting to me as I unloaded my cart. What was so strange I thought, at BJs it shouldn't be a surprise to amass an eclectic mix in one's cart. Club members don't come to window shop, they are there to BUY! Granted we're talking mega-amounts, but I didn't consider my cart an outlier and it shouldn't have raised an eyebrow. It clearly did for my checkout lady. There were some paper napkins (OK, a ream), olive oil (a gallon), Stacey's Pita Chips (two yard waste sized bags), Windex (double pack commercial size) and bananas ...... five dozen. Nothing fazed her as she moved the items through, nothing that is until she got to the bananas. 

"Can I ask what you do with all those bananas?" she whispered so as not to attract attention. Since buying lots of bunches may be SOP (standard operating procedure) for me but not for her, I searched for a short version of the favorite fruit story you just read. Not quickly coming up with one, I offered an alternate scenario. In a hushed voice, audible only to this perplexed young woman, I said, "pet monkey".

"Oh", she replied, and with that understanding promptly concluded our transaction.  

Turns out I liked that on the fly answer and have since used it several more times. As stated before, one can never have too many bananas.

If biting into a frozen treat doesn't warm you heart, I say just try it, you may like it.

Visit my web site anytime to view other Galleries, Photo-essays, and read previous blog-posts, then kindly share on social media. Thank you.