Tomato picking with the Tide

I'm no stranger to odd dreams.

I have them so frequently that they seem normal to me.

But the one I had recently sort of went over the top.

I was with my family in a large field. It stretched on for miles, it seemed. The field was filled with tomato plants of every conceivable variety and hue. And I was there to pick them.

I was not alone, though. My family was there with our little red Radio Flyer wagons - mine had a little Conestoga top - and we had on work gloves and were carrying baskets.

In the midst of the tomato harvesting, the Alabama Crimson Tide players were all there decked out in game day brilliance picking tomatoes right along side us. The deal was that we all picked from the crimson fields and then would go watch the Tide play.

Unsure even now of the significance of picking tomatoes in full gear, the Tide was nevertheless filling their little wagons with juicy tomatoes and carrying them to the waiting trucks at the end of each row.

They never even got their white game pants dirty. Not even a smudge.

They were so white that the sun's light reflecting from them hurt your eyes. The sky was so blue and the splendor of the verdant green field speckled with the red and crimson tomatoes peeping from between the leaves of the plant created a masterful palette of color.

And still we picked.

Nick Saban showed up.

He had on his Panama straw hat. He was wearing khaki shorts and a Tide polo. Nick did not pick. He was there going up and down the rows telling the players and other pickers to "give it everything you've got".

It was sort of inspiring.

At that point, my dream became a jumbled mess and I know I was talking in my sleep because I woke myself up with some nonsense about quilted tomatoes. Any idiot knows that won't work. Once you poke a sewing needle through the delicate skin, you risk rot or juice flow. You can't quilt a tomato. They are, however, really good in gravy to be poured over rice.

When I woke up, I wanted a tomato sandwich.

Alas, that was not to be as my few remaining tomato slices had turned on me... and not in a good way. When a tomato slice has a little gray beard, it's time to cue "Taps" and let it go.

Hmm. Was that some sort of subliminal message that I'd have to get more tomatoes?  Stranger things have happened.

At any rate, know that in my dream, the Crimson Tide picked every last tomato in that field in record time. There was no fuss, no muss and no bruised fruit. Just beautiful tomatoes that shone crimson in the summer sun.