Master of the Tomato Patch, Raouf J. Halaby photo, 10/12/2026
After deciphering Away from it ALL in the email subject bar and prior to composing my text, the following Copilot prompt showed up on my computer screen.
“Hi Raouf,
I hope you’re doing well.
I wanted to reach out and see how things have been going. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from the usual routine and take a break from everything for a while. I hope you’ve had a chance to enjoy some time to yourself and recharge.
Looking forward to hearing from you when you have a moment.
Best regards,”
The above text is what copilot had decided I should send. And the same advised that I should amend the text to read “I decided to send.”
And I refuse to use AI or engage in debates about it, including its virtues and its follies. And during this season of electioneering, I’ve about had it with Donald Trump’s maniacally deranged and hateful policies and rabidly racist rhetoric. And in my own state, the profusion of MAGA hateful rhetoric and corporate monies have spawned mini-Trump candidates such as Tom Cotton and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, both of whom are using anti-immigrant discourse of the vilest form in misleading 30 second political commercials. Denigrating hard working migrants without whom farm, chicken house, meat processing, construction labor, and myriad menial jobs will go begging – is downright hateful. No surprise about preacher Huckabee’s daughter; like father, like daughter.
Am I right in remembering that she was “all for” underage migrant children (as young as 13) working in perilous conditions in meat processing plants – instead of attending school?
Disgusted with all the news reports, and especially the misleading political ads, this morning I turned off the telly box and ventured into my safe space, a garden on which I spent a fortune (well over $100/month) trying to keep my 50′ x 55′ vegetable patch alive in this summer’s rainless and brutal record-setting 22 consecutive days of100+ degree temps. Even though the harvest has been sparse (sharing with only 2 neighbors as compared to 10+ friends across town in previous years), my garden has always been my refuge from the ebb and flow of – you name it.
And especially this, a summer of the worst worldwide discontent, including genocides in Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine; and in a world in which might makes right; and in a world in which the threat of obliterating entire civilizations goes unchallenged; and in a nation whose mostly conservative Supreme Court members enable fatuously puerile behavior by the nation’s leader, including his childish name-calling in every other sentence; and in a world in which free speech is muzzled, and, at home, journalists are banned from the kingdom, while across the world journalists, along with the truth, are incinerated with US-made 2,000 lb. bombs (267 in Gaza alone); and in a world in which war is peace, and peace is weakness; and in a world in which the denial that global warming is real and detrimental to our existence prevails; and in a world in which executions are scheduled for barbaric live streaming to appease a made-up defamed Christian God made in the image of false prophets; and in a world where black is white and white is black; and in a world in which settling scores with heinous retribution are the norm; and in a world in which nature continues to unleash her anger in apocalyptic storms, fires, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, mud slides, typhoons, and hurricanes, all of which remind us of mankind’s impotence in facing nature’s unleashing her angry response to our repeated disregard and abuse we inflict on her.
Absconding myself to my safe space, Away From it All I plodded.
Thus, it was that on the morning of September 12, 2026, I performed my several-times a day ritual. I walked to my garden plot, my own little Paradiso where, except for evidence of a racoon’s scavenging for worms in the layers of grass clippings and mulch, serenity prevailed. The 12 Fall broccoli and 12 romaine lettuce plants are thriving and no doubt in need of fertilizer. 1 cucumber and 2 bell peppers were harvested. Two days ago, I bought pitted black olives to go with the lush green basil plant leaves interspersed in the garden and attracting mostly bumble bees – these days honeybees are a rarity in my neighborhood. In a day or so, the leafy aromatic basil leaves will be churned into a pesto concoction smothered in garlicky virgin olive oil. The eggplants are still blooming and will provide an abundance of the prettiest dark, shapely purplish fruit that will become baba ghannouj and mak
As I was scouring the tomato plants looking for the tomatoes that were denied me all summer, I spotted a large green tomato. Or was it a tomato? Except for the white stripe and bulging eyes, I would have thought that this was an aberrant tomato. Perched on his regal green tomato throne, I named him Master of the Tomato Patch. Nature has its own way of always surprising us with freakish misfits of its own – such as twin cucumber/zucchini squash veggies, two-headed snakes, including deformed species. And just as nature’s occasional anomalies give us pause to ponder and ask poignant questions, led by a deeply flawed man (one of many around the world), this anomalous political season takes the prize for the paucity of leadership, petty behavior, and incessant assaults on the rule of law – at home and abroad. Ah, vengeance, retribution, and name-calling are mine, sayeth he of the fake gold-plated dominion.
Upon closer inspection, I was taken aback at the frog’s ability to camouflage itself with a mantle of monochromatic green, no doubt for both – protection and predation. That rare morning observation gifted me yet one more natural mystery I’ve logged into my lifelong love affair with the natural world – in both memory and image.
Along with the image I texted to a handful of friends, I wrote: “This is where I meet God and converse with Him.
He is Love. He is Creation. He is Mystery. And, unfortunately, HE often leaves us to our own devices.”
Back to Reality. Will Trump and his henchmen reach into their corrupt burlap bag of dishonesty to hurl additional October surprises so as to jam the cogs of our voting system? On November 3, 2026, Americans will be making important decisions, including decisions about health care, inflation, perpetual wars, global warming, political corruption, to name but a few. Perhaps like no previous election, this November America voters have the opportunity to decide on their fate and the fate of nations across an ever-shrinking world.
This Away from it ALL interlude, albeit a brief pause in my daily routine, is a lifetime of a serendipitously accidental encounter with The Master of the Tomato Patch. An encounter that prompted me to memorialize personal and other 2026 events.
