The summers of my girlhood were sepia-tinted and riddled with mosquito bites. I worried the itchy bumps until they ballooned into nickle-sized monstrosities that raised my grandmother’s eyebrows into her pillowed silver updo.
My paternal grandparents owned a two bedroom bungalow nestled within a peach orchard and bisected by a raildroad. The windows rattled with midnight trains that roared as loudly as the Second Coming. Decades ago, a train did leap that steel path, and the ensuing shriek of destroyed metal drove my grandmother to her knees, sure that angels heralding doom and glory were inbound.
On hazy dogday afternoons, my grandfather led me into the orchard. I ducked into the fragrant warren of branches and leaves and dappled light. My tennis shoes squealched over rotten peaches tumbled in wasteful pink piles at the base of those squat trees. The sheet abudance of fruit excited my little-girl imagination as much as the discovery of pirate’s treasure. With a basket craddled against my elbow, I wanted to pick every single one. To bully my way through leaf and limb and return home burdened with a summer’s bounty. Why do I remember these trees as monolithic? Surely they only grew a few bushy feet.
My tiny hand reached high — but I recoiled with a shriek. The perfect russet peach I’d spooted was pockmarked with beetles. One side was golden, but the other roiled with black and green carapices, many-legged and scuttling. Disgusted, I dropped the offensive fruit and scampered after my grandfather.
My grandfather (Pawpaw, as we called him) picked the sweetest peaches, balanced on the delicate edge of ripeness. He’d hold them to his nose, then mine. You could smell the sunshine in the fruit. As though the tree had nutured and blossomed pure sunshine into food. Take one bite and sheer summertime dribbled down your chin.
We’d lumber home, a market basket swinging between us. Peaches waiting to be peeled, sliced, and simmered into cobblers, jam, salsas, and preserves. My grandmother would peel a golden corkscrew of peach fuzz. I never minded the texture of unpeeled peaches, but she inisted on peeling and slicing the very best fruit. She arranged the slices in a dawn-colored fan on a Corelle plate, then presented them to us as though serving honored houseguests.
There’s simple magic in the summers of childhood. In homegrown fruit and food and family.