Strawberry Season

We stood side by side, day after day, sorting. It was the middle of strawberry season and oh, the conversations that swirled around our aunt's ping pong table-turned sorting board. You get to know a person when you work with them through the heat of summer, and she was kind. She was funny. She was Imogene!

Our aunt ran a tight ship, but anyone could see we were having a blast. The hours never dragged, because the hilarious stories just kept on coming. And we always wanted more. 


Everybody joined in from the very beginning of a strawberry season: there was so much to do! First, we would be gotten up extremely early, then stumble groggily out to the strawberry fields to pick; then we would become truly awake sometime around mid morning and start a strawberry fight (there was always a strawberry fight if someone said someone else's mother wore combat boots..); then we might sing songs or tell stories while picking; and finally, we would have our berries weighed and placed on the truck.

When we became old enough, we were allowed to be a part of the sorting team, and then go up to the strawberry stand on the highway to sell. We felt this was the epitome of jobs. If you got to sell, that meant you were mature and trustworthy and you had very little supervision. At age 16, this was awesome! You could also drive our uncle's pickup to get more berries, or deliver money back to the farm.

Some of our customers up at the stand were rather strange.

One day a woman stopped her car, came over and looked suspiciously at my sister and said, "I want some berries that have NEVER TOUCHED THE AIR. NEVER. Get them for me, please." My sister stared at her, then ventured, "Umm, I'm afraid all of our berries have touched the air, Ma'am.."

"Well I don't WANT those berries then. I want only the ones that have never touched the AIR!!!" The woman wouldn't be convinced and so my sister very delicately opened the berry cooler, rooted around in it, and finally brought out a flat of berries saying, "Here, Ma'am, here are some strawberries that I found at the very bottom. They might be just what you're looking for."

The lady inspected the berries, found them satisfactory, paid, and left. We never did work out how any berry in this world would have grown in an airless environment. But, as every American knows, The Customer Is Always Right - and that is an attitude that will always sell berries!

On a recent visit back to that farm, we drove up to see my sweet aunt. There she was, as funny and full of great stories as ever. The first thing she said to us was, "You want some strawberries?" Strawberries! Of course! "They come from the store in town, but they're still pretty good."

We sat, and visited, and ate our berries. They were very good, but still not quite the famous berries from decades ago. No one could match those berries, no matter how hard they tried. But that didn't matter right then. Seeing my aunt was what mattered.

And as always, she was kind. She was funny. She was - Imogene!



See you along the way!
the SconeLady