Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Watermelon

All week I have been contemplating a fairly serious entry: a quasi-review of a wonderful book I am reading. But, everything changed at lunchtime. Since then, all I have been able to think about is watermelon - how it sounds when you cut it open, how it looks, how it sparkles in your mouth with cool sweet crispness, how it satisfies hunger and thirst. What a fruit! I have been thinking about the poor cancer patients who are suffering through chemotherapy in the winter, when there are no watermelons to be found. I am telling you, my tender tongue has found the perfect ending for any meal.

Watermelons figure pretty large in my weird subconscious. First of all, I associate them with bobcats, because my Grandfather McLeod always kept a prime watermelon cooling on his backporch in the summertime. This back porch, however, was not - to me - a particularly friendly place, because it was open to a wild overgrown woodsy thicket, and at night in my bed on that side of the house, I could hear bobcats screaming. In my childish mind, the back porch was just too darned close to the things which might be waiting to pounce on an innocent child eating watermelon. I always made sure to wait for my grandfather to be with me before venturing to the porch.

This same grandfather grew these wonderful watermelons....the rattlesnake variety with the wavy dark green stripes on the lighter green background....so I have happy memories of going to the field to select a perfect one, and also eating it...and, of course, spitting seeds. He would be amazed, I think, at the pristine way I eat my SEEDLESS watermelon these days, sitting at a table with a knife (and maybe even some salt). He also would be amazed at the idea of a seedless watermelon. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty for buying these genetically engineered fruits, but for city dwellers with no good place to sit and spit seeds, they are the perfect solution.

One more thing: I wish I knew how to video myself singing and how to post it on this blog...because if I did, you could enjoy the following little ditty which I think I learned at Camp Longwood, a Presbyterian Church camp. At least, you might enjoy it at first; but it is the kind of tune that really gets stuck in ones head, so maybe it's better just to have the words.

Plant a watermelon vine at the head of my grave
And let the juice....ssssllllrrrpppp.....drip through.
Plant a watermelon vine at the head of my grave
That's all I ask of you.
Now the chicken and the possum,
They say are mighty fine;
But there ain't nothin' sweeter than a watermelon vine.
So plant a watermelon vine at the head of my grave
And let the juice...ssssllllrrrpppp....drip through.

2 comments:

  1. I...actually don't like watermelon at all. I could eat my way through a cantaloupe or two, but watermelon? Ugh. I think it's the texture or something.

    As for posting videos, you just need a webcam. :)

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  2. I DO know the song, and now it's stuck in my head. Thanks, Mom.

    I always think of keeping watermelons in the creek at Montreat, and the time some jerk smashed them!

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