The Sugar Beet

Sugar beet, my sugar beet how sweet thou art.

I hold you in my hands and memories flow out.

I see Poland, Germany and the USA as one.

The tip is so sweet and the meat so tender when cooked.

The greens and your top is fed to farm stock for ham & steak.

The body is used to make syrup and sugar and vodka. 

As mentioned in my earlier stories,the sugar beet entered my life back in the village of Shostka(now Poland).I don't remember that we had any growing on the farm. My brother Armwin and I went roaming and saw them in the loading area of a railroad yard.
In West Germany I found out more about this plant,such as how to thin the rows that the remaining plants can grow big and not be stunted. Saw my uncles harvest the mature beets. Went gleaning for them after the harvest and ate the cooked meat of the beet.
 My uncles also brought some from their work so the family could make syrup and mash from which vodka could be distilled and I got my first buzz.Later years in the USA, I saw acres and acres of them in the fields and trucks and railroad cars loaded with this precious cargo heading to the sugar factories.I also was involved by selling filter elements to those factories to remove impurities from the flow of beet juices in the manufacturing process.
 The beet continues to be part of the family now. My nephew Kurt Steinke,PhD, is doing research in the field  to improve the sugar content, yields at harvest time and how to reduce the deseases of the plants.It will be interesting to get first hand progress reports unless his contracts have the code of silence in the fine print.