Picking Blueberries Evokes Childhood Memories

Print this entry

On a pleasant Sunday morning, when the humidity was low and the temperatures reasonable for mid-June, I cranked up our 1965 Ford F100, rolled down the windows, and headed to Greer Farm outside of Daingerfield. I wanted to pick blueberries. I have been looking forward to this for about it for a month, since I ran into Sid Greer at the downtown Farmer’s Market.

It felt good to be hurtling down the highway with the breeze whipping through the 2-60 AC, which was working perfectly. (That’s two windows open while driving 60 mph.) I also have a fan clamped to the ash tray, its cord plugged into the cigarette lighter but did not need it that morning.

My old truck (still for sale) has its original cigarette lighter, and it still works. That says something, though I am not sure what. Now, thank goodness, most new vehicles come with neither lighters nor ashtrays — just a 12-volt outlet to plug in a phone charger or GPS.

It takes about 45 minutes to get from home to Greer Farm, plenty of time to solve many of the world’s problems — and conjure up new ones. I did a bit of both. The truck’s stereo, added by a previous owner, does not work. I am fine with just listening to the highway hum and the soundtrack of my mind — just not for too long.

Last summer, I was lazy and in a hurry — an unfortunate combination. So I just bought several pre-picked pints and froze most of them. The blueberries were devoured quickly. I planned on buying several gallons this season. But first I would pick at least a bucket’s worth on my own.

Picking blueberries evokes childhood memories. My maternal grandparents lived in the country outside Concord, N.H. Down the narrow road heading to the picturesque village of Hopkinton was a power line right-of-way that each summer was filled with wild blueberry bushes. Grammy Bourque always led us grandkids to pick buckets of luscious berries. We would gobble berries as we picked until our lips and fingers were blue. Grammy would bake a few blueberry pies, while we ate blueberries in our cereal the rest of the summer.

We left New Hampshire for Texas in June 1968. I have never tasted a blueberry since that matched my childhood memories of those wild blueberry bushes on Farrington Corner Road. None had the juicy sweetness of a Granite State blueberry. I once planted a pair of blueberry bushes while living in Nacogdoches — which has a Blueberry Festival and decent blueberries, just not New Hampshire quality. The blueberries I grew did not even match the store-bought version from Chile or Mexico.

Then I discovered Greer Farm. It offers much more than blueberries — farm-raised eggs, organic beef, chicken and lamb, and other produce. But blueberries are the main attraction for me, after I put a few in my mouth straight off the bush last summer. I was taking a photo for the Mount Pleasant paper, to illustrate a light story on it being fruit harvest time in East Texas. That’s when I bought several pints, after eating a few berries off the bush before persuading a young mom and her child to be photographed picking a bucket-load.

Oh my. I was transported back to New Hampshire, my funny French-Canadian grandmother sending me and my brother and cousins into the blueberry bushes and brambles, dodging black flies and voracious mosquitoes, emerging with buckets of sweet fruit and scratches on our arms and legs.

I picked carefully on my latest trip. Picking berries is a peaceful exercise, a way to transport oneself to a quiet place, just the soft sounds of berries slipping into the bucket, birds chirping, little kids a few rows over excitedly filling their own buckets. Folks come from Dallas, even Austin, to pick berries here. I understand why.

I came to berry pick a bit too early, and had to carefully pluck the ripened berries among those a couple weeks away from being ripe. It was too early to buy pre-picked bags. I will have to return within the next week or two. I bought a couple dozen farm eggs as consolation.

Sometime soon, I’ll crank up the truck again, see if I can talk my Beautiful Mystery Companion into joining me, and head back for another round of berry picking, plus buy several pints already picked.

Grammy Bourque would be proud.

Print this entry