| Cover story |
From the Editor
By R.D. Hohenfeldt Managing Editor July
is just another word for blackberries, fireworks, tomatoes, barbecue and
watermelon. Out
in the country when I was a young Ozarks Boy, we’d get up early during
blackberry season to go blackberry pickin’ with Grandma Hohenfeldt.
There were lots of wild blackberries in the brush, and Grandma liked to
pick as many as she could get to, freezing them to eat throughout the
year Oh,
how we kids looked forward to going blackberry picking. We’d put on
long-sleeve shirts and we’d tuck our pants into our boots. Then we’d
spray with some kind of insecticide to keep the ticks and chiggers off,
although out in the country there was no way for a kid who played
outside to avoid chiggers. We hated ticks, though. I don’t know if Off
was even invented at that time; Grandma used something from Stanley Home
Products, which I’m not sure even exists any more. We’ll
we’d take off at daybreak to try to get as much picking done before
the sun got high in the sky and heated us up. Even with the sun low on
the horizon, it didn’t take too long for us to get hot and start
whining. It
took a much longer time to fill up a bucket, because we ate as much as
we picked; maybe more than we picked. Oh,
man, though, we’d forget the heat when we got back to the house.
Grandma would fix us a bowl of blackberries which we’d sprinkle with
sugar. My cousin would add some milk. I preferred just berries and
sugar. Might fine eatin’. Summer
is also watermelon time. The
other morning while in the car I listened to the Beale
Street Caravan program on KUMR
(which will become KMST this month) and heard a feature on "blues
food." I think the commentator was Jessica Harris, a Southern foodways writer. She talked about
watermelon, acknowledging that it can be a dangerous topic among African
Americans. In fact, she said that if you were to bring up that topic
among a group of blacks you would be "taking your life in your
hands." |