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! Basic Black by Arthur Black HAVE A BANANA Time flies like an arrow Fruit flies like a banana Consider the humble banana. Was there ever a more perfect fruit? No leaves to shuck, no rinds to claw away, no pits or stones to loosen your fillings. No need to add sugar or milk or any other thing. Just unzip... .and eat. The banana is a delicious, convenient self-contained meal. But even if it was as tart as rhubarb, as prickly as an artichoke and as impenetrable as a coconut, we would still be beholden to the banana. If only for its linguistic contributions. contributions. We have banana seats on bicycles and banana peppers in the spice department. We have the banana fish, the banana boa and Harry Belafonte singing the Banana Boat song. Australia has the banana bird, Ontario has its banana belt; various Mafia families pay homage to their Head Bananas and Second Bananas and South and Central America have all manner manner of tin-pot dictatorships familiarly known as banana republics. And where, pray tell, would humour be without the humble banana skin? Humour needs the banana skin. Stephen Leacock opined (although he disapproved) that the archetypal joke is the proverbial man walking down the street and slipping on the proverbial banana skin. Whether the bard of Mariposa approved or not, there is something wonderfully wonderfully amusing about the outsized, canary-hued, goofily phallic banana. Too bad it's doomed. Black Sigatoka is the culprit. It's a fungal disease that is lashing through banana plantations plantations around the world even as I type. Don't they have fungicides that can knock out Black Sigatoka? Well, yes, but that only helps for a while. "As soon as you bring in a new fungicide" says one expert, "the fungi develops resistance. One thing we can be sure of is that the Sigatoka won't lose this battle." The problem is intensified by the fact that the bananas we buy are highly hybridized. Bananas in the wild are scrawny, tough as leather and full of seeds -- virtually inedible. inedible. Over the centuries growers growers cultivated various mutant strains that had a sweet taste and no seeds. No seeds in the banana is a real plus for the eater, but it means the fruit is sterile; it can't be crossed with other strains to breed for disease disease resistance. So is the situation hopeless? hopeless? Some experts think so. Last month's edition of The New Scientist contains an article article saying flatly that the banana as we know it could be a thing of the past within 10 years. There's always the potential potential of new and more powerful fungicides, but that's not a mouth-watering prospect. Neither is another possibility: the genetically modified banana. Researchers have already developed genetically modified bananas that are resistant to Black Sigatoka, but lots of folks - including a columnist I know - are very leery of popping genetically tinkered comestibles down their cake holes. But this is solemn stuff. Far too sober-sided for a treat as inherently cheerful as your humble banana. Let me leave you with the only banana joke I know: It's a story about a bus conductor. conductor. He works a downtown bus in Dallas. One day he rings the bell just as a passenger is coming through the door. The driver takes off and the passenger is run over and killed. This being Texas, the conductor is put on trial, found guilty and sentenced sentenced to the electric chair. Comes the day of his execution, execution, he's about to be strapped in the chair and the executioner executioner asks if he has any last requests. "Well" says the guy, "is that your lunch over there?" The executioner tells him it is. "Could I have your banana?" The executioner gives the condemned condemned man his banana, allows him to eat it, then straps him down and throws the switch. When the smoke clears, the guy is sitting in the chair, looking around, totally unharmed. The executioner can't believe it. "Can I go now?" asks the guy. "I suppose suppose so," says the executioner. "This never happened before." The conductor is released, gets his old job on the bus back and six months later the same thing happens. He rings his bell before the riders have boarded, the bus takes off and another rider is run over. The conductor gets the death penalty again and exactly the same scenario unfolds. He eats the executioner's banana, the switch is thrown, millions of volts course through his body - the room fills with smoke and when it clears the guy is sitting in the chair, unharmed. "This is insane!" yells the executioner. "What's your secret? Is it the bananas?" "Not really" says the guy in the chain "I'm just a really bad conductor." Thursday, April 10, 2003 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Garnet Rickard Complex 2440 King Street West, Bowmanville, Ontario GUEST SPEAKERS: Mark Urquhart Municipal Health and Safety Association • Hazards Around The Farm • Safety Around Farm Machinery Fred Young Ontario Farm Safety Association Child Safety • Visitors to the Farm • Slow Moving Vehicles • Safety Around Livestock Please R.S.V.P. CALL: 905-623-3379, ext. 213 or e-mail: planning@municipality.clarington.on.ca Mi* >' lj ' 1 ' j" l.j 1 ; h , Sponsored by Municipality of Clarington Emergency Services & Clarington Agricultural Advisory Committee REFRESHMENTS Durham Region Farm Safety Committee