Fruits of my Youth

STATE ROUTE 9, LOUDONVILLE, NY. If you turn right, go about 3/4 of a mile, you'll happen upon the street I grew up on--literally the last street on the left on 378. This is where NY Route 378 begins--or ends--depending on whether you are traveling east or west to or from the Hudson River. In this case, it would be east. The riding stable I mentioned in my "Horse Crazy" post, as well as the polo field, were just up the road from here, on NY Rt 9.

Ah, growing up did have it's trials and treats, when I was a kid.

The treats were often small delights for us kids: For a few years, the ice cream truck made it's stop, obnoxious kiddie tunes blaring, up our little dead-end street. Of course, we kids had to shout the equally obnoxious ritual chant: "I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!" Poor guy, having to listen to that all the time. My sister favoured the red white and blue icy "Bomb Pop"--flavoured like cheery, lemonade and blueberry. I went for the Italian ices--either cherry or lemonade.

Then, for a while, we had the "Fruit bus." No, it wasn't a busload of gays--'tho that would probably have been more fun. It was a beat up rickety old school bus, with the seats taken out and bins put in--filled with all kinds of fresh fruit. I am not particularly fond of fresh fruit--usually just bought apples or an orange or tangerine. The Doctor would have been disappointed --they don't sell satsumas here. Mum and sis would buy bananas, or grapes, as a rule,and sometimes cherries or pears.

But these weren't our only culinary treats, not by a long chalk.

Whenever we'd BBQ, there was always a bag of marshmallows handy. Us two girls--and any neighbour kids that were handy--would dash off and grab sticks from the nearby trees, jam our marshmallows on to the tip of our sticks, and toast the white chunks of fluff over the glowing charcoal briquettes, until they were golden brown on the outside, and nice and gooey inside--tho' sometimes they'd unhappily burst in to flames, and all you'd have left is black charred white goo--which we often ate, anyway.

Sometimes--not very often--we'd eat the tops of the "onion grass"--wild onions, that looked like scallions. The onion part was buried deep, and hard to uncover--so we might just eat the "grass," which was plentiful--it had a serious bite to it, 'tho, so I didn't like it much.

Our favourite summertime activity, was picking blackberries. This wasn't as easy as it sounds. As you may see by the photo, blackberry bushes have thorns--loads of them. We often came home from the overgrown fields with scratches on our legs (if we were wearing shorts) and arms and hands. Not to mention loads of misquito bites. Oh, what fun. Scratched, itcy, with a margarine tub or coffee tin filled with berries most us and our parents didn't eat---without loads of sugar, they tended to taste a bit like, what I often thought of, as slightly sweetened ink.

One time, one of the boys stepped on the far end of a small well-rotted log. It flew up and caught me in the cheek--I never felt a thing--was truly scared when everyone looked at me all horified, and pointed to my face---apparently, I was bleeding profusely and didn't even know it. Seems the broken off tip of the small log, had left a deep gouge in my cheek--I really never did feel anything--which I learned later is not a good sign...it's sometimes when a deep wound doesn't hurt, one has to worry.

So I went home and it was off with mum to the ER of Albany Medical Center. I spent the remainder of the afternoon--totally terrified out of my wits. They stuck me next to some kid who was also up for getting stitches--a lot of them, apparently--without the aid of anestetic. The boy just screamed and screamed. And there I was, waiting...and waiting...and waiting for the doctor to show up and stitch my right cheek (still have the scar, by the way, 'tho it's very faded). About ten days later--actually, I think it was only about a half hour to 45 minutes--the doctor comes in. I tense...."Well, he says, we'll just put a bandage on that, and you can go home, okay?" Oh, the happiest of happy news! I felt like hugging the man! Seems the would was too jagged to be stitched or something like that.

The next day, I was out picking berries again, being admired for my bandage.

SOME NEW YORK STATE LITTLE KNOWN TRIVIA:

Photo of Black race track writer, John Fitz Gerald. He is unofficially credited with first calling New York City, "the big apple--a name he picked up from an unknown groom in New Orleans. New York's nickname "The Big Apple," took off in the 1930's in the African-American communities of New York City. Although others have attributed the popular city nickname to black jazz musicians, the first "official" use of the name, does indeed appear to be in the 1920's racing news of Fitz Gerald. John is Buried--mostly forgotten-- in my old hometown, in Albany Rural Cemetery, in an unmarked grave. He wrote a column for the New York Telegraph called, "Around the Big Apple."