One of the occupational hazards of working in a government agriculture office is the increased likelihood of encountering, if not being cornered and trapped by, a beginning olive grower. At our ag center, every agent who provides some form of government-sanctioned farming assistance–from the Farm Service Agency to Cooperative Extension, NCDA, Soil and Water District, and even the Forest Service (olives growing on trees)–has been ambushed once or twice by our local would-be olive grower, a serial ambusher whose ability to hold hostages through the spoken word is downright frightening.
At first sight of his car pulling into the parking lot, the ag center reverberates with the sound of office doors closing and the clatter of government employees diving under desks, only to be followed by a hushed silence as the olive grower traverses the hallway in search of a victim to waylay. Sometimes a benevolent soul, usually a career public servant seeking to prank a new hire, will assist the olive grower in his search for the best employee to answer olive-growing questions.
One morning, as a new soil conservationist, nary had I yet leaned back in my chair and kicked up my boots before the local field crop agent, who was set to retire in two weeks, guided the olive grower into my office. “Good morning, Stephen,” said the agent, “I’d like to introduce you to Tyler Wilson. He wants to start growing olives and has a few questions.”
To be honest, I was caught by surprise, completely unprepared for any discussion on olives. Had I had time to open my mouth, I would have admitted I knew little about olive culture, only enough to doubt they would grow well in our climate and soils. Thankfully, I didn’t betray my ignorance because I was quickly informed that the foothills of North Carolina was a prime olive-growing region. Tyler Wilson told me so himself.
Tyler told me a lot. He talked non-stop for two hours about olives and was possibly the foremost expert in the olive-growing industry, despite the fact that he had yet to plant his first olive tree. Eventually, I feigned the symptoms of food poisoning and politely declined Tyler’s offer to drive me to the hospital to continue our chat. The last time I saw Tyler in the ag center, he was interrogating our janitor about the best sanitation practices to prevent disease in olive orchards. And judging by our janitor’s dazed expression, I would say Tyler’s long-winded discussions about olives should probably be outlawed by the Geneva Convention
