Hold on, this is a long story:
Had a talk with my sis-in-law about peach trees the other day and if they would grow in our parts, apparently they do and if I’m lucky I can get a little peach tree from a friend of hers who’s had success with them. He got them from Croatia so, yep, maybe I’ll be having some Croatian peaches next year! You see I have this ugly old bush in our backyard and I’m planning on cutting that thing down and planting a fruit tree, that started the whole discussion.
All this talk about peaches reminded me of our trip to Texas last year.....too funny.... I still laugh and cringe at myself at the thought! Anyone who lives or has visited in Texas knows...there grows the best peaches in the country! My own Sister after all, used to work the stand where we lived and I was mighty proud of them peaches, so here I was gesticulating to my boys in the wildest manner about the best peaches this side of the Padernales River and that we absolutely must stop at one of those stands on the side of the road that sell em. I went on and on about how they would love the taste and would never eat another peach outside of Texas Hill Country!
After driving around and passing most stands we finally decided to stop near Stonewall and grab some of those luscious deep orange colored fruits. The boys decided to stay in the car, probably due to the extreme heat of August in the south. If they would have come with me maybe it would have saved us a few bucks and my being totally suckered in...
As I got out of the car and headed for the stand, I knew there was something not quite right, but you know how it is, you don’t want to be that way. So I ask the young girl how much one of those small buckets of peaches is and she takes a quick glance back at her old daddy and she then says “9 dollars”. Me, instead of saying thanks but no thanks, grab my wallet, whip out 9 bucks and give it to her. Because where I live, peaches are actually priced much higher. She dumps the old peaches from bucket to a plastic bag and hands it to me (naive as I am I actually thought I was gonna get that bucket too). I knew it was all wrong, but what to do....I just thought, let’s just get the heck out of here. These peaches, needless to say where...well, they looked like they had been picked from the ground on the side of the road. Really bad!
I’ll never here the end of that....but you know what was even worse? When we reached the California border, we had to give up all our fruit (I hope those border patrols enjoyed them peaches, ha ha). We saw peaches for sale in California for a dollar a pound, beautiful round juicy peaches for a dollar a pound!
Now, I’ll never forget those Texas peaches for sure! No, I'm not even mad at the folks that sold them to me, it just saddens me that the state of the economy for them is so that they have to pull those kinds of stunts. Guess they thought big car = big cash = buttheads. They don't know we work our bunns off day after day for the little that we have and that the car was not ours. Anyway, call me what you will but I did a good thing that day anyway....I feel like I made a small donation and made a couple of people obviously in need feel good about themselves and I also learned a little life lesson for a very small price.
Still funny....I'll never look at a peach the same way! Have a wonderful day ... and take a stop at one of those fruit stands at the road side, you never know what you may find!
Cheers!
Sig
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