Walter Brickman is an older man, living with his daughter Barbara and her family since a suicide attempt left him in the hospital three years ago. Barbara has remained concerned for father ever since, believing he was undone by his wife’s death. He was, in fact, mourning that each had confessed to their respective affairs only in the last year before her death, and it had been the sweetest year of their entire marriage. Walter’s support network encouraged his pursuit of hobbies after the attempt, but after he developed an all-consuming obsession with a self-built radio and a woman in the Philippines with whom he communicated over the radio by night, his children and psychiatrist intervened. Barbara kept a more wary eye on him ever since, now worried his fastidious gardening is becoming the new radio. He refuses to return to his job, which his children often suggest, and he struggles through family time and parties. He spends his time instead riding the 9:30 PM bus with the elderly black man Mr. Miggs, an unlikely friend who empathizes with his aging and familial tensions without patronizing his hobby. Walter conceals this friendship from his family and conceals too his grand plan to bring winning tomatoes to the state fair. As the date approaches, he grows more and more preoccupied and overtly disinterested in the family, until the night of the judging his daughter refuses to let him out of the house without explanation. Infuriated, he calls his more sympathetic daughter Charlotte to come pick him up, igniting rancor throughout the family. Charlotte drives him to the fair where he discovers, with euphoria and renewed self-confidence, that his glorious tomatoes have won first prize.