I credit Idaho potatoes for saving my life on at least one occasion.

The backstory

As a Ricks College student back in the early 1980s, a couple of fellow Rigby Hall residents and I borrowed a roommate’s car – a bright orange 1970s Ford Pinto – and took our dates on a short trip to see the remains of the Teton Dam.

It was going to be a quick outing that should’ve had us back before dark and well before curfew.

When a slick road sent us into a snow bank, I began to worry. Of course, we had no snow shovel, tire chains, or anything else we should have had before setting out into the wilds of Idaho’s high desert.

This was well before the advent of cell phones.

Not far from our little snowbound party was an old potato shed, where I hoped we would find a shovel or some other kind of tool to

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