KUDZU PATCH

     KUDZU: A large, broad leaf vine, green in color, with rapid growth rate. Grows wild particularly in southeastern North America. Imported from China during the 1930s as fodder for cattle and soil erosion control. Made the milk bitter and its widely spaced root structure did little to retard erosion.

ANDERSON INDEPENDENT-MAIL
Sunday, February 9, 1997
Spectrum Section
"Recollections" by Kayle Bannster

     Fifty years ago: Thousands upon thousands of kudzu crowns, soil erosion fighters, were to be planted in Anderson County before March. Joe McGee, county Triple-A officer, urged farmers planning to make orders to do so as early as possible. The kudzu crowns cost $12.50 per thousand but under the AAA program recipients got federal credit for $10 per thusand, paying only $2.50 out of their pocket.

The KUDZU Patch
{500 years later}

editor's note:
     these notes were found near an old computer terminal just as it was being cast out into the junk pile in the kudzu patch. it's now 2597 we estimate these were written about a hundred years ago.

     Notes from the Kudzu Outpost Cafe Late in the 25th Century from Billy Joe Bob and Sara Mae Jane.
     The date that the kudzu completely enveloped the industrialized Northern hemisphere is not known exactly. The slow, steady, and methodical nature of the ever-growing green vine is one of the amazing features of the stuff; given enough time the vine will cover anything and everything in its path. So, its steady progress was most likely not given proper attention as the decades passed during the early 20th Centuries. A lone motorcycle rider spotted the stuff West of the Mississippi River late in the 20th Century. Legend says he assumed the situation was known by the authorities and thus did not bother to inform them himself.
     Now, of course, late in the 25th Century, kudzu is a problem. It has strangled all progress in the industrialized Northern Hemisphere and the gross national product of most countries is devoted to fighting the green vine. That's not saying much, however, because the destruction caused by the green beast has been so total that few people are alive to join the fight.
     The Queen vine has placed its roots deep into the red earth of Georgia and South Carolina. Needing great quantities of water, the Queen emerges from the earth surrounding the once might lakes Hartwell, Lanier, Jocasse, and Kewoee, the lakes mere puddles as the Queen consumes all the water that can collect following rains in the region. The presence of the green breast has, of course, altered the weather patterns and the Kudzu itself has engineered special enormous leaves that help collect the rain and direct it into the lake beds. A single leaf is said to cover most of Pickens, Greenville, and Oconee counties, growing up into the foothills of the Blue Ridge so as to form a funnel down to the lakes.
     How The kudzu got across the barren parts of the West in the Untied States, from just West of the mighty river to the Rocky Mountains, is not precisely known. It's well established that transport across the Rockies was due to the numbers of tourists who toured the beautiful and spectacular mountains before they too gave in and were covered by the stuff.
     It's equally well established that transport from the Western edge of the Rockies to the American West coast was due entirely to the CA-ians who moved from their Golden State into the West and then just as suddenly moved back to where they came from when Real Winter returned to the Western United States. These CA-ians were especially helpful in getting the green monster across the really barren parts of Nevada. Authorities now say that without this assistance, kudzu would never have made it to California because there's nothing in Nevada for the stuff to survive on (or more correctly put, on which the stuff can survive). This is not entirely correct as the kudzu seemed to be able to adapt to many environments that at one time it could not survive.
     The Real Winter, however, in no way whatsoever slowed the progress of the vine. It adapted to its new environment and actually thrived in the cooler climates. Scientists observing the vine taking over the surface of the Earth, who were planning counter-attacks to try to stop it, were at first startled and later down right frightened to see the stuff thrive in environments previously hostile. The frigid conditions of Alaska and the Bering Strait did nothing to slow the invasion of the Serbian region of Asia.
     The deserts of Nevada were just the first of the hostile environments the vine overcame. It was when the vine traveled Northward into and then across Canada to the North Pole and began to thrive on ice and sea water that produced the first world-wide damage. The weight of all the kudzu on the polar ice cap sank the ice deeper into the ocean and caused the sea level to rise and flood all sea ports around the world. A disaster that caused uncountable deaths and destruction to the people and economies of countries everywhere.
     It was at this point that the scientists began to think the impossible. The plant was not merely mutating and adjusting to the new environments that it found itself in, it was conducting its own genetic engineering. Genetic engineering lead to faster adaptation to formerly hostile climates and growing conditions. At higher elevations, the plant had become an evergreen and thereby provided greenery year round to the Rocky Mountains from deep in Central America to high in Alaska.
     South America at first was spared. The countries there banded together to fight the vine as it approached from Central America. They simply invaded tiny Panama and increased the width and depth of the Canal by blowing the country up and pushing the dirt into the oceans. This puny attempt was so insignificant that it barely got mentioned in the history texts of the times.
     Legend says that the skyline of New York City is an impressive sight now that it's covered with kudzu. As the vine will do, everything has been grown over leaving only the outline of the structures underneath. When the twin towers of the World Trade Center were being covered by the beast, the space between the towers was connected by kudzu making a great web of the stuff over a thousand feet high. A sport developed for vine climbers and those making it to the top of the World Trade Center using only the vine web were heroes. The trip back down to the green sidewalks of New York City was always attempted to be very fast and records were kept for the fastest slide down from the summit of the buildings.
     We've also heard that the most amazing sight of all was the world's tallest building in Malaysia covered with twenty five hundred vertical feet of kudzu. A vine swinging sport developed around this building. The objective was to find the longest single strand of kudzu and swing around the covered building. Eventually, when the building was completely covered, single strands of kudzu were cultivated to grow from the very top down to the green sidewalks. Launching themselves from nearby covered skyscrapers really excellent swingers could travel completely around the world's tallest building on a kudzu vine.
     America is entirely responsible for transport of the treacherous vine from our shores to the entire Northern hemisphere. Seattle Washington was the center of this sad and massively destructive process which stopped civilization as we knew it.
     The computer software made by the Mega$oft Company in Bellvue, just South of Seattle, was used in every computer on the face of the earth. Additionally, every single computer on Earth at that time, about one billion machines, was based on the CPU chips made by the unIntel Corporation. Between them, Mega$oft and unIntel were responsible for fully 50 % of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States. The integrated profit for the two business behemoths over the centuries was essentially uncountable. Money flowed in like the Mississippi, Amazon and all other mighty rivers on the planet combined before they were clogged by the kudzu.
     The worldwide demand for the products of these companies was fulfilled by a process that involved many countries around the world. Specifications for software and hardware were developed in the United States and these were shipped to companies anywhere that could help meet the demand for the products of the companies. Typically, software was produced by countries in Central Asia and the hardware in Eastern Asia. Western Europe by this time had evolved to economies that did not require workers producing products.
     Many of the computers and most of the software were assembled into final product form in the United States and shipped by airfreight by UPS, FedEx, DHL, Airborne, and newer companies that had been formed just to help handle Mega$oft and unIntel products to destinations around the world. Almost all the planes used for this were made by the Boeing Company at locations all around Seattle Washington. Boeing was another great American success story and it's somewhat ironic that this company is also involved in causing the destruction of the Earth.
     What would happen after the kudzu made it over the mountains to the West coast is that little shoots of the stuff would get shipped by plane along with the software and hardware specifications and the final products. The vine had genetically engineered itself so that new bare earth could be gained by starting with just a small fragment that could not be seen with the unaided eye. The stuff was everywhere and impossible to control. The tiny fragments would get lost in the paper and packaging for the materials being sent to all corners of the earth. From that small starting point at airports everywhere, the kudzu was off and running. The green beast knew that it need new bare earth to survive and was able to devise methods to attain its goal.
     A national laboratory in Northern New Mexico was renowned for its expertise in genetic engineering. The lab was involved in the early attempts to map the human genome and so knew a thing or two about genetic engineering. As the leaders of the US came to know that the kudzu was reeking destruction of a magnitude unknown before on Earth, resources were devoted to fighting the vine at its own game. The Lab in New Mexico, equipped with more computing power than all the other computers in the world combined, developed a way to stop the advancing green beast. We survive here by staying a step ahead of the green monster. We and it are in a constant battle of genetic engineering.
     The Lab is located on high mesas above the Rio Grande River in Northern New Mexico. We have successfully stopped the beast at the foot of the mesas by introducing small pieces of the stuff with altered genetic material near where the vine ends. Our brand of kudzu is capable of arresting the growth of the unaltered stuff. We don't go into more details here because we think the beast has managed to develop intelligence and can learn our secrets. It's a constant battle even now because the real kudzu is forever changing its genetic structure and we must constantly change the structure of our kudzu stopper if we are to survive.
     All our computers operate around the clock working only on the kudzu problem. Our computer programs are called KGB, for Kudzu Growth Blocker. When the project to stop the kudzu was first started many people couldn't avoid noting that for decades in the 20th century the secret service of our mortal enemy had the very same initials. Many thought that for sure the old USSR was behind the kudzu plague sweeping the earth. The fact that central Asia was being covered by the stuff did not prevent them from spreading this notion.
     This tiny outpost is one of maybe five in the United States. Total destruction has been the story everywhere else. The US is kudzu green year around from coast-to-coast. We manage to have enough land free of kudzu to produce the foodstuffs we need to stay alive. There's little communication between the Kudzu Outposts so much of what we think we know about the others is many decades old and may be of no truth whatsoever.
     You may wonder how we got to New Mexico. When the KGB project was getting underway, leaders at The Lab knew it would be to their advantage to have someone from the southeast homeland of the beast. So having the wanderlust and wanting to join the fight we came to The Lab as kudzu experts. We're now without a doubt the world's leading experts on kudzu. We do miss the Bar-B-Que and grits of home, however.
     So we find ourselves in a very bad situation here late in the 25th century. Survival of the few people left is not at all certain. But we'll struggle on.

God bless,
Billy Joe Bob and Sara Mae Jane
© edhughes 1997