Thursday, July 16, 2015

Melons


 
 
 
Melons

           By July

 “Nana, we’ve brought watermelon,” my young grandson said and handed me a plastic container filled with evenly-sized chunks of melon. My mouth watered when I saw the beautiful, crimson pieces of melon. Except, something was missing…seeds, where were the seeds? How could we have a watermelon seed spitting contest without seeds?

 My dad enjoyed eating watermelon and many years grew them in his garden. If it didn’t rain and his crop failed, he purchased them, usually from a stranger in a parking lot who had a pickup filled with melons. Daddy submersed it in the water tank we had for the cows. After all, a cool watermelon tasted better than a warm melon. After supper Daddy brought the melon into the house and split it open with a large butcher knife. The louder it cracked when jabbed with the knife, the better it tasted. Each person took a half-moon shaped slice, went outdoors to sit on the porch steps, and enjoyed the melon in the cool of the evening. That was where the seed spitting contest was held, too. (We were easily entertained.)

I’m not picky when it comes to melons because I like cantaloupes, too. An elderly couple lived across the country road from my childhood home, and each year they planted cantaloupes in their garden. When the melons were ripe, I was sometimes invited over for a late afternoon visit and a piece of cantaloupe. My neighbors placed the cantaloupe in the small stream behind their house early in the morning so it would be just the right temperature by mid-afternoon. They did not have a refrigerator.

The couple is no longer living; I wish they were. A picture of President Dwight D. Eisenhower hung in their living room, and they were proud of their state’s native son. Now that I am older, I would enjoy another visit with them. How interesting it would be to know their thoughts on Kansas, America, and the world, itself! I would enjoy a nice, water-cooled, slice of cantaloupe.

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