going to market

During the summer, fruit and vegetable stands litter our landscape. I can drive from here to the mall in Douglasville and I pass two established fruit stands, one flea market where you can get fruit and at least two areas where you're likely to see the tailgaters - people on the roadside with a folding tent or umbrella and a folding chair, selling anything from watermelon to pineapple.
Unfortunately, in recent years (I'm not sure how recent, but that's another story), this has become a sort of jaded exercise. It's because few if any of these people are growers. You don't see a long sweeping vista of farmland behind them. More often than not, they are simply mom and pop shippers. They have driven down to Florida or South Georgia, or over to South Carolina, or out to Alabama. Because of where I live, this is what amounts to fresh produce.
And when you consider that Kroger imports from California, and Publix goes to Ecuador, I have to realize -- it IS fresh produce. Baby needs to accept a fact of life. Baby doesn't live in the country anymore.
So it's a nice thing to visit a farmer's market. It's an even nicer thing to have a conversation with the people who are selling wares there. Because you have the same situation there as you do along the side of the road. Some of the vendors at the farmer's market are shippers. They've loaded a wood sided truck with boxes and boxes of "local" produce, and they've set up shop to sell it to you. But there are also those who've walked out their backdoor to fields of tomatoes, rows of squash, and planting boxes of organic eggplant. And when you speak to them, you learn their names and who they are and what they do. And before too long, you have an accurate picture of what came from where. So while I pay $3.50/lb for my farmer's market tomatoes, I come home with a sack of Cherokee purples and zebra stripes from a Georgia backyard, and they taste wonderful compared to the plastic mealy substitutes for nutrition I get from the store. And because I ask the shippers, I even know where they got their peaches from. And if I'm not convinced that his peaches are worth $2/lb, which is at least .30 more than I can find in the store, he slices off a piece of it for me to taste.
"Ma'am, would you like to try this peach?"
"Yes sir, where did you get these?"
"We went out to South Carolina for these. These are clearstone peaches."
My smile brightens. "I know what that is, I might need to get some of these."
A clearstone peach is a rare commodity in a grocery store. Large commercial shippers despise them. See, when you pick a peach, it stops ripening. The only fate a peach can suffer after it comes off the branch is Rot City. You can't buy a hard-as-a-rock peach in the store, bring it home and set it on the counter, hoping it will ripen. It won't. It will only soften as it's disintegrating into mush. I'm sorry if this upsets you, but it's true.
Clearstone peaches come into this world on the soft side. They aren't a canning peach, the kind growers love because they are firm and hardy. They are table peaches. They belong in smaller, family orchards. They are the kind you pick as they ripen. They are the kind you pick at the height of summer and enjoy in the moment. They are the high note in summer's song.
"Now ma'am, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach," the old man confided in me. He looked to be in his late 60's or early 70's. I had been to his stand before and bought cucumbers from his daughter. She was friendly, but it had only taken a few questions from me before I understood that she didn't know the land, and didn't know her produce. She was there to smile and take money. I had walked away a little disappointed, but I'm glad I returned the following week to speak to this man. I was now staring -- smiling -- at the brains of the outfit. And I think he was worried that I'd be offended that he wasn't selling Georgia peaches.
I wasn't. "I just want you to know, there's nothing wrong with a Georgia peach, but they aren't table peaches."
"I lived a lot of years in South Carolina, and I'm real familiar with table peaches," I said to him. "Could we fill up a bag?"
"Ma'am, I have the diabetes, but when these come in, I have to have at least one a day."
"I totally understand." And I did. And he talked me into 5lbs of fresh, delicate South Carolina table peaches. And I'm so glad he did. Because that was two weeks ago, and for whatever reason I haven't been able to get back there to the stand. And that's a shame, because while they're probably still coming in, I missed getting anymore at their peak. The next time I go, the peaches will probably be south Georgia peaches. Or they will be Alabama Chilton peaches. And they will be good. But they won't sing in my mouth the way those did. It was a fleeting glimpse of the best of summer.

--Laura

In Remembrance - Margie Boulware, 2006

My friend Margie died in the spring. I find myself thinking of her this time of year.

Mother called me when Margie died. As chance would have it, I had left the cell phone in the car, vital piece of technology that it is. I listened to the message the next morning. When she said she had something to tell me, but didn’t want to say over the phone, I knew someone had died.

Dad answered when I called, so he was the one who told me. “Laura, Mrs. Margie died.”

I was surprised. Things like that are supposed to happen of course, but sometime in the future, when you’re expecting it. She had been in my thoughts recently. As I was looking through some old Christmas cards, I realized that both my mother and Mrs. Margie had sent me a card with a polar bear on the front in the same year. I laughed when I realized that they’d both been on such a similar wavelength. And with that came the thought that on my next vacation to Savannah I needed to devise a way to sneak over to Okatie for a visit.

I remember the last time I dropped by on my way home from the Savannah Irish festival in February. Ann was there, and I didn’t have long to stay, but a visit to the area wasn’t right without a hello to Mrs. Margie. And as usual she’d been full of plans. She was a little thinner and a little slower in her steps maybe, but she was the same vital, interesting person I’d always loved. It is difficult to grasp that she is gone. That will take some getting used to.

When mother told me the circumstances of her death, I said, “Well mother, if you could choose how you would die, I think that’s what you’d pick.” Mrs. Margie wasn’t a person for nonsense, so it struck me as particularly appropriate that in one breath she was here, and then a few breaths later she was not.

The Margie I knew had an open door policy with me. And she really seemed to love listening to any nonsense that came out of my mouth on any given day and at any time I wished to share it. Since I was a kid, I tried not to let on how important that was to me. Growing up, you can be really dumb sometimes.

But I loved being in that house in front of the fire or sitting at the kitchen table and talking for hours about nothing special. I spent more time talking to Mrs. Margie than I spent with my own grandmother, who thought I was too quiet and bookish “just like” my mother. I don’t know that I had more in common with her, but with her I came fresh and without that genetic baggage that comes with being “just like” someone you raised. And her gift was to listen to me chatter on like I was just the smartest, most fascinating person she ever knew, when I was really just a loner and a kid. I in turn thought she hung the moon. Really.

I always kept an eye out for her truck on Camp St. Mary’s road because I knew she’d wave if she saw me. Being on the river was always better if we managed to spot her in the boat or fishing on the dock with her mother. And there always seemed to be at least one excuse to turn down the dirt road leading to the Boulware Place, so that I could pick up our conversation where we left off.

And I can remember vividly that when I got my college acceptance letter, and no one else was home, my first thought was to walk straight from the mailbox in front of my house over to tell Margie, because I knew she wouldn’t mind one bit. That’s the best kind of adult there is.

I regret that these are the kinds of things you always save up to say about someone after they’re gone. I think about all the good it would do just to have it all said while everyone is alive and healthy and can still appreciate the heart that went into saying it. What I hope is that through all the chattering I did back then, by the fireplace or out in the barn or at the kitchen table or in that hulk of a truck or out in the boat on the water, that she knew already that she was the best kind of adult a kid could have as a friend. I will miss her.

--Laura