Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: Peggy's father was a farmer and grew wonderful watermelons. The following is his memory of retrieving watermelons at the age of 14.
My memories are mixed up in places; however, one of my fondest childhood memories was the time my mother and sisters wanted to eat watermelons and asked me to go to our watermelon patch to bring some back to the house. This was around 1964 when I was about 14years old. The watermelon patch was on Bush Lake Rd near Fred, Texas. My dad leased the old Harvill place for planting which was about 1.5 miles North and East of our house. I had gone to the barn and put Uncle Rufus' old "bucking" saddle on our old female mule "Ater". This was dad's old plow mule which was about 38yrs old at the time. She was mostly skin and bones with a hide stretched over. (I still have the old saddle in the barn. The saddle horn is solid brass.) I took two burlap "tow" sacks and went of the field where we had planted Jubilee or Garrisonian watermelons. (Both are rattle-snake types of watermelons...long and striped...40-50lbs each). I found two nice ones and put them in the sacks (one in each). I tied a rope around the top of each sack with the middle of the rope around the saddle horn. Not an expert tying job but I was a mere 14years old. I started home, taking the long way staying off the highway, and hadn't got about a third of the way when one of the burlap sacks came untied and fell to the ground. I had caught the other and lowered it carefully to the ground. (This was about 100yds from the field near the fork in the road heading south near a sandy spot by an oak tree). After checking the other watermelon that I had caught and finding it in good condition, I decided to eat the broken watermelon. The next thing I remember was looking over and saw "Ater" eating the other watermelon. It was the most serene picturesque moment for a 14 year old boy in cutoff blue jeans, no shirt, no shoes, with an old hat, and his family's old plow mule eating watermelons by the side of the road. It was a scene that should have been caught on canvas by Norman Rockwell. The world stood still for me in that moment. It took me longer to fetch two watermelons for mom and my sisters that day. I traveled back to the field and carefully tied up two new watermelons and headed to the house. I don't think i ever told my mother what happened that day and no one ever asked why I was gone for about 2 hours.
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