RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32194, 13 January 1970, Page 14

RANDOM REMINDER

THE MOUSE THAT ERRED

There are a few things which make New Zealand's way of life specially attractive. High in the list come Bluff oysters and whitebait Grown men have been known to drool at the very thought of fresh oysters and football teams in Southland have indulged in disgusting orgies based on this delectable offering. So it is with whitebait only more so. People wait for the season impatiently, wait even more impatiently for the prices to fall into

the limits of the average purse, and once or twice a year enjoy what they regard as the greatest of I gastronomic treats. In third place is the mushroom, also sought after eagerly, an<j there must be many who are looking forward even now to autumn and the mushroom. One mushroom enthusiast on the West Coast, a man known for some obscure reason as the Mouse, was being driven one day, some considerable distance ' from home, and he noticed

a magnificent field of mushrooms. But he made no spoken observation about it He said nothing to anyone, either, when he was in bis home town again. But he made his plans. He did not own a car. So he hired one, at no nominal cost, and he drove 40 miles to this gastronomic gold mine and 40 miles back. But he did not have any mushrooms with him. It is hard enough to get blood out of stones, let alone mushrooms.