Word: watermelon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Ivan Bright's watermelon weighed a whopping 186 Ibs. that Tuesday and was gaining at least 2 Ibs. a day. Could the melon weigh in at 200 Ibs. by midnight Friday and earn its grower a $10,000 prize offered by a booster organization in Hope, Ark.? It did not reach 200 until Sunday, and Bright, 65, a farm-supply-store employee, had to settle for $500 in other prizes. But Bright's future may yet be, well, bright. For one thing, he has sold some of the seeds of his melon, a dozen...
...Best" sits proudly on the tailgate of a pickup truck as people line up to have their picture taken with it. When the specimen is finally sliced open, Bright thinks it could feed 200 people. One other just dessert for the citizens of Hope, which calls itself "the Watermelon Capital of the World": Bright's belly buster surpassed the 197-pounder raised by North Carolina's Ed Weeks in 1975, which is listed in the 1979 Guinness Book of World Records...
...brags about its yellow dust. Nashville has a swelled head over the racket, only occasionally musical, that it produces; Memphis lauds itself about the special quiet it has enjoyed ever since the late Boss Ed Crump banned auto horns. Apalachicola, Fla.? The oyster is its world. Hope, Ark.? The watermelon is its. If some places-Podunk, Peoria and Kalamazoo as well as New Jersey -take unexpected pride in being the classic butt of vaudeville jokes, others seem to get a chauvinistic glow from the fact that they resemble a distant locale. Birmingham, Ala., for instance, has long saluted itself...
...trucks to ship them east, a loss that is calculated at $15 million to $25 million. In Florida some farmers face ruin unless 2,000 truckers can be found to ship $50 million in produce to Northern markets. An estimated 45% of the state's $30 million watermelon crop has been spoiled. Produce brokers are offering up to 35% above normal pay to anyone willing to haul produce, and about 90% of the Southern harvest is being moved. Says Jack Gilchrist of the Georgia department of agriculture: "We were right on the edge of catastrophe when things changed...
...ideal for freezing; other innovations include the first bush-type butternut squash and a tomato, Long-Keeper, that stays fresh up to four months after picking. The redoubtable Burpee catalogue alone offers such enticements as the spacemaster cucumber, a pumpkin whose seeds can be eaten raw, and Sugar Bush watermelon, which represent years of genetic selection not only for flavor but -more important to the home gardener -for compact growth in a limited space...