Blackberry Summer

Blackberry Summer

Conventional daybreak means nothing to the July Sun in Oklahoma. It skips from pitch-dark to parched-heat. Bouncing across the brown grass pasture in the back of Uncle Lindsey's old Ford pick-up, my bottom sizzled on the wooden floorboards like chicken strips placed on the griddle. As soon as the wheels began to grind to a stop at the blackberry shed, all nine cousins and the three Fain boys jumped out through a cloud of dust.

We wandered around like clowns in the circus, in oversized long sleeve checkered shirts and floppy straw hats, grabbing at wooden trays filled with quart containers. I found a sturdy one that held six quarts remembering what it's like to haul it back when it's full from the other end of the field; then I felt a twinge of inadequacy when Harvey Fain went striding toward the far row of vines swinging two ten quart carriers.

It didn't pay to postpone the inevitable. Berries didn't pick themselves, the Sun would get hotter and Uncle Lindsey didn't pay for empty containers. After an hour berries and sweat flowed evenly. I was a third of the way down my side of the row when Harvey blew by -- a berry picking demon on the row next to us, after clearing both sides of his first row. The rest of the five acre field plucked each berry with metronomic precision and became a dispersed choir belting out the second verse of "Cool Water."

"The nights are cool and I'm a fool each star's a pool of water . . .cool water."