Montrose Man Still Talks to Potatoes

(Spring Creek UPS) Melvin R. Toole hasn’t been the same since the Spanish American War where he was a 10-year-old drummer boy. Having been wounded and separated by his regiment at San Juan Hill, he claims to have survived three months in the jungle on a crop of Irish potatoes.

“I don’t know who planted the spuds but I’d sure like to thank them,” said Toole, a spry, alert 127-year-old , who withstood the ordeal as a young man of 17. “He has visited Ireland and Peru (where potatoes were first established as a crop) in search of answers. He has found few.

“People just stare at me,” he whined. “Don’t they understand the intimacies of all this? Can’t they let an old man have some peace?” 

Today the veteran seems satisfied carrying on extended conversations with local spuds.

“I can’t really call them dialogues,” said Toole. “but one never knows what’s around the next corner. I just want to find someone to thank and all eyes are on me.”

– Princess Irm Peawit