Summertime--not really my favorite time of year. Yet I know it is upon us. What you ask, tells me that it is here? Watermelons!! As a kid, we didn’t generally load watermelons until school was out. Or sometimes, maybe the last week of school. School’s out, watermelons in! I have wonderful memories of this time of year. My father was a farmer and grew watermelons. He grew a relatively small amount. If the crop was good, you could make a little money. If it was a bad year, the loss was bad, but wouldn’t totally destroy you. He grew watermelons (actually all his crops) without irrigation. He and the rest of the farmers depended on the rain. If there was no rain, sometimes you had special prayer meetings to pray for the needed rain. Farmers went to church, and rarely worked on Sunday.
Back then, all watermelons had seeds. So, you learned how to eat watermelon and spit the seeds out. Shucks, half the fun of eating watermelons as a kid was seeing how far you could spit the seeds. Watermelon was eaten outside, generally on the porch, so Mama didn’t have a mess to clean up inside. Also, you couldn’t spit seeds in the house. Now being the farmer’s daughter, watermelons were plentiful. Us kids didn’t get to eat melons that could be sold, but we had all the culls we would want. My dad would bring a bunch of the ones that could not be sold and pile them under the pecan tree in our side yard. Any of the neighbors, friends or just other locals could take watermelons home from the cull pile. Grocery stores didn’t carry very many watermelons in Chiefland because no one had to buy them. It was a game for some of the young people to steal watermelons, but most farmers would just give you some for the asking. I remember when I was working at the health department, and older business man told me how much he appreciated my father. When he was younger he had 5 children and couldn’t afford to buy watermelons, my father told him to come to the house and load up the back of his pickup. He said he always remembered my father’s kindness.
We hardly ever had cold watermelon to eat. The watermelons sitting under the tree were cooler than ones straight from the field. You just went out to the tree to retrieve one, cut it in half, and generally eat the heart of the melon, then threw the rest over the fence to the hogs. If you wanted more, just get another and eat the heart. This farmer’s daughter didn’t have to spit seeds, because I didn’t eat that far down into the melon! And my family always ate watermelon with the salt box near. There’s nothing better than salted watermelon. Unless of course, it is cold salted watermelon. Now I have to admit, I no longer eat watermelon unless it is cold. I go ahead and cut up the melon and put it in a bowl in the refrigerator. And I will eat it like that. But…. My favorite way to eat it is to place it in the freezer for about 20 minutes, take it out and salt it, then eat it. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, I forget it and I have watermelon that is too frozen to eat and then I have to thaw it a little, or a lot.
Another thing that stands out about the watermelons of my childhood is the size. We didn’t stick them in the refrigerator because they were so big and took up so much space. Farmers grow much smaller watermelons today. People don’t want to buy such large melons today. But I have to say, they look a little wimpy compared to what they used to look like.
Like I said in the beginning, summer is not my favorite time of year. I don’t enjoy the heat in my old age. But I have wonderful memories of growing up, summers and being a farmer’s daughter. Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane as much as I did.
Until next week!
Cynthia Kay
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