Watermelon

Water melon

We recently bought a watermelon in Llano and that started something. I had temporarily forgotten how much I like watermelon. Since then we have had watermelon in the refrigerator cut and ready to eat every day.
Watermelon always reminds me, too, of my boyhood in Emory, Texas. I was born there and lived there until I was 10.
The soil around Emory was sandy loam and very good for raising watermelons and cucumbers.
During the Summer, I and my boyhood friends did what boys did then. We left home in the morning headed for the woods and the creek, stayed all day, and came home in time for dinner. We had an old 12 gauge shotgun that we found in a burned down house, which we were able to repair and make it shoot. The barrel was warped a little, but that did not matter.
We spent some time hunting birds and rabbits, then it was swimming hole time, au natural, of course.
During watermelon season, the trip to the creek was always through a watermelon patch. You could always find a “lost” melon, which was just ripe for picking. It wasn’t like we were stealing, or anything. After all, it was lost, and we learned early in life “Finders, Keepers”.
The creek was spring fed and cool, so we put the melon in the water and by lunch time it was cold.
We did not have knives, so we simply raised the melon high and dropped it. That exposed the heart of the melon in all its glory. And I tell you, you have never experienced the real flavor of watermelon unless you just bust the melon and “eat the heart out”!!!
BJM
8/12/2010