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Maryann, I love having just plain chicken salad on a bed of lettuce, but I HAVE to have the crackers, too. There is just something about that salty crunchy cracker piled high with the sweet creamy chicken salad. YUM!!!!
I have been eying the watermelons at the store, but the price is so high and the quality is so uncertain. So I'm going to wait until I can pick one up at a roadside stand. Now forgive the ramble down memory lane. Feel free to scroll past. LOL!
My grandfather had a large farm, and I spent a lot of my early childhood there, especially during the summer since my mom worked. He used his land to grow corn, soybeans, and cotton. He did have a small vegetable garden to supply his table and that of his six children's families that cared to come gather for theirs.
But one thing he didn't always grow was watermelons. That's because his brother used his large farm next door to grow produce. And two of my favorites were his strawberries and watermelons. It was so funny, I always had such a hard time putting the juicier looking strawberries in my basket! I usually ate more than I took home! LOL!
To show how large of a scale he grew produce, I'll relate a near tragedy involving watermelons. Picture a farm truck the size of a dump truck but with wood slats for sides. Then imagine that truck filled to the very top with watermelons. Four cousins were sitting on top on the way back from the field where they had been gathering the melons. One of the boys fell off! He was almost killed, but luckily, he came through. It was a miracle, for sure.
Funny how just the mention of watermelon could conjure so many memories. And to think how I took all that free food for granted all those years. My grandfather gave up the large scale planting, as well as the cows and pigs, after his stroke when I was 16, but he made sure his farm hand, Al, kept the family garden going until his death when I was in my late twenties.
Daphne
Keep your mind wide open.