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A quote: “I think a good friend, to me, is all about trust and loyalty. You don’t ever want to second-guess whether you can tell your friend something.” ~~ Lauren Conrad
I’ll start with a story …
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Miss Marion lived in the blue house at the end of the cul-de-sac and Ma was fierce in ignoring her.
So when Ma said not to play in front of Miss Marion’s house or ride my bike across her lawn I knew better than to ask “why.” Especially that time I started to open my mouth and Pa, behind her, tipped his head towards me.
Now Janey from across the street is most curious about this and likes to tell me what she overhears what her own mama says. Last time we were riding bikes she could barely wait until we hit Emerson Elementary’s parking lot to talk about it.
“Strawberries!” she said, trying to catch her breath.
“What? How do you figure something like fruit would make for years of hatred between ‘em?”
Janey shook her head, “Just an excuse. Miss Marion’s been growing them for years. So many she needs help getting them in about late spring.”
“Ok. So?”
Janey’s voice dropped, “I heard mom tell Mrs. Murphy that Miss Marion doesn’t grow ‘em for the berries but the boys.”
I must’ve looked like the biggest dummy around as I couldn’t figure out what she was sayin. Until she laughed in my face and I did. Me, 11 years old and knowing things of the world.
I blushed, “What’s that got to do with my Ma?”
Janey leaned in “Years and years ago, it was your Uncle Jeff. Even after your Ma warned her.”
We saw Uncle Jeff every other Christmas and my Aunt Doris and cousins on the other ones. I never asked but I sure felt sorry we couldn’t all spend time together.
Uncle Jeff and Miss Marion? Really?
Almost enough to put me off strawberries.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
When I was growing up, my favorite part of visits to Grandpa and Grandma’s place was their strawberry patch. Maybe the strawberries in the store were bigger, but nothing could taste sweeter. In late spring and early summer those strawberries would grace Grandma’s angel-food cake at church potlucks and family reunion.
Some time around my grade-school years, we moved away and visits to the old home place got rarer. Grandpa had a stroke and Grandma had to sell the old home place. Couldn’t manage a big old house on the edge of a small town that was losing population — and services — every year. By the time I graduated high school and had a chance to go back to that small town, I couldn’t even find the house that loomed so big in my memories. Maybe it’d been torn down, or maybe its new owners had renovated it so completely that I couldn’t recognize it. But I’d always remember those strawberries, and how much I loved eating them.
Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much time reminiscing about those, because when the Kitties announced that they were looking for settlers on all the planets they were trying to keep out of the Lobsters’ mandibles, Jordan said we ought to sign up. Have our own place with yard big enough for a garden and a strawberry patch like the one I was always going on about.
And truth be told, I was getting tired of apartment living, always wondering if the landlord was going to jack the rent when we signed the next year’s lease, or just plain decline to renew it so we’d have to scramble to find a new place. We’d tried several times to buy, only to discover that we couldn’t qualify for a mortgage, and thus were in the unenviable position of paying twice as much in rent as our mortgage payment would’ve been, for half the dwelling space.
However, like so many things in life, actually getting our little piece of heaven proved easier said than done. For starters, it turned out this world’s soil lacked some key nutrients or symbiotes that strawberry vines needed to thrive and set berries. We tried several times, but the poor little plants would struggle just to survive, and there’d never be the first blossom, even as the rhubarb grew right up to my waist and sprang back as fast as I could cut it down. I talked to the Imperial equivalent of a county agent several times, but that tom could never give me any better answer for the why, let alone any useful how on fixing it.
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