Riding to California on a Potato.

 Johnny’s mother was cross with him, “Why on earth do you make the potatoes so small when you peel them?”

               “I hate peeling these dumb, tiny potatoes, with this stupid knife,” he answered. “I wish somebody would develop a big potato, as big as – as big as a brontosaurus dinosaur!”

Johnny lived in the 1860’s, when big potatoes had not yet been developed. Potatoes then were very small, and that is why Johnny hated to peel them.

At the very time when Johnny was grumbling with his mother, it just so happened that Lute, another boy, who was 19 years old and wished he could go to California, was about to fulfill Johnny’s wish for a large potato.

Lute grew potatoes. He was out in his potato field one day inspecting his plants when he noticed on one of them a little white round ball. The ball was a seed pod – something very rare among potato plants. At once he became excited, for he knew that potato seeds do not make plants like the adults that produce them. (Farmers who grow potatoes do not plant seeds. Instead, they take some of last year’s potatoes, cut them up, and plant the pieces. These pieces grow into plants with new potatoes on the roots, and the new potatoes are just like the old potatoes.)

               “Now,” said Lute to himself, “with these seeds I can make a new kind of potato, maybe one that is not so small. Maybe I’ll even get a plant that grows big potatoes. And maybe for selling my new, big potatoes I can get enough money to go to California.” He knew he would have to wait a year.

Lute kept the seed pod indoors all winter and the next spring planted the seeds. Twenty-three plants grew. When the plants were ready, he stuck in his fork to dig up the first one. Up came the ugliest potato, all wrinkled, and it did not taste good either. After digging twenty-one more plants and finding them all the same he was afraid to did up the last one. He was shaking so much that the fork would hardly go into the ground, but when he got it in, he couldn’t get in out. He thought it had gotten stuck on a rock or something, so he pulled a little harder and out it came, something was stuck on it. He looked closely and found it was not a rock but the biggest potato he had ever seen in his whole life! He and his mother took it in and ate it. It was the most delicious potato they had ever eaten.

Lute took cuttings of the plant, and soon he had a big bag full of his large, smooth, delicious potatoes, and he sold them to a nurseryman for $150! By the time Lute left town for California there were thousands of big potatoes.

Johnny’s wish for a large potato reflects his belief in the possibility of something greater beyond what he currently had. My hope is beyond what I currently have. My hope is in  eternity and the earth made new, not just a journey to California. It is a sure hope, because the evidence for it is bountiful.

This story of “Riding to California on a Potato” offers a unique perspective on the power of faith, perseverance, and unexpected blessings. It highlights how a simple desire for change and a chance encounter can lead to the realisation of dreams. In a spiritual context, this story can be seen as an allegory for the transformative journey of an individual seeking abundance, self-discovery, and divine intervention.