Ahhhh, fresh strawberries. The smell of winter.
When SwampMan and I were out wandering around central Florida, we picked up fresh strawberries that had been picked before the freeze. I put them in the fridge in those green bags that are supposed to keep produce from turning into slime mold in the bottom of the veggie crisper, and promptly forgot about them as per usual. I’m not sure if 4 days of forgetfulness is a long enough test, but there was not a spot of mold in sight and the strawberries were as firm and luscious as when I put them in the fridge. I could almost taste them as I got out my favorite old paring knife to slice them. Then the phone rang. Some of you may know that I’m not a big fan of phones. In this case, the caller ID said that it was an aunt that I had not spoken with in @ 20 years, so I wondered what was up and answered the phone.
She just wanted to call and reminisce about the old days when her kids, my brothers and I, and the other cousins were running wild around her house. She reminded me about the time when my cousin Dale told me to pour some water in a hole and stir because something really interesting would happen (it was a yellow jacket’s nest). I remembered when we were getting the nectar out of honeysuckle, my lil’ brother told her daughter that to get honey from bees, you catch them in your hands and then sucked the honey out of their butts. The cousin had some huge red bee-stung lips for awhile, and lil’ bro had a very sore behind when aunt got through with him. And then there was the time we climbed the tree up onto the garage roof and decided to test capes for their aeronautical ability when we jumped off the roof. As individuals, we had enough good sense that we would have never thought to try something like that, but as a group, we suddenly either got a lot stupider or maybe just waaaay more optimistic about the ability of a small child to defy gravity and land unscathed on concrete when they had my aunt’s best towels tied around their neck.
When I try to picture my cousins, I don’t remember them as the last time I saw them years ago as young adults with children, and now my aunt tells me that they are grandparents (which shouldn’t surprise me, yet it comes as a shock). In my memory, they’re out swinging on grapevines in the woods playing Tarzan, shooting BB guns and arrows in a spirited game of cowboys and Injuns, and my lil’ brother is telling my gullible littler cousin how you suck chicken butts to get the eggs out.
Now it’s 11:30, I have to get up in the morning, and haven’t yet fed the livestock, took a shower, cleaned the strawberry juice off the counter, or cleaned the kitchen. Still, I wouldn’t have traded my walk down memory lane tonight for any number of household and farmyard chores being done.
