Cherry Pickers

May 22, 2011
Rich and Jayne,
I wanted to remind you that you are welcome to pick cherries off of my tree. It is an old fashioned cherry tree with the very red tart cherries. It is not sprayed so you may have to compete to get the best fruit.

The tree is just like the two cherry trees that were in our next door neighbor's yard on Evanston Avenue. When the cherries were ready word would go out and the Tumey, Stanfill and Warning kids all seven or eight of us would gather and start picking, little ones on the lower branches and older/bigger ones would climb up as high as possible. This was an all day affair. As our baskets and pails filled they would be emptied into larger bowls.

Mildred and her mother, Nana, would "pit" the cherries with a hairpin. Other moms and older kids would help with this but the youngest would just pick. A huge pot of sweet red syrupy cherries would start boiling on the stove. Scoops of white sugar would flow into the pot and finally the rows of one pint Ball Jars would be filled. Then clear hot paraffin wax would be poured on top to seal the "preserved" ruby red, glass-marble-sized fruit suspended in glossy syrup and would be left to cool. Finally the brass colored two part lids with rubber seals would be screwed on top. All of the "pickers" got a share.

Months later on a cold winter morning a jar would appear on the breakfast table. And daddy would use his muscles to open the top with a loud pop. Then the paraffin would be carefully lifted out with a knife and spoonfuls of summer sun trapped in red orbs would land on your warm toast.* I can almost taste it 60 years later.

I wanted to pass the experience onto Freya so much so, that the last summer they lived in the Indy house when she was two and a half we put on our garden boots and went out with our garden basket and picked several handfuls of cherries, brought them into the house and washed them and put them into a pot on the stove. After her nap the cherries were ready to put in graham cracker tart shells and covered with whip cream and enjoyed. She will of course have no real memory of this and until she reads this will not know that the cherries in the tarts came from a can of cherry pie filling switched while she slept. But then I really did all of this for me and I enjoyed it immensely.

*Note - Again, it just dawned on me. When we would have toast and cherries for breakfast, there were no eggs or bacon. Warm toast and cherries with cold milk comprised the whole meal. It must have been one of those ways we were made to feel "plenty" when there was "not enough". What amazing parents we had.