This Way or That Way

Apples don't fall far from their trees. Well, cherries don't either.

On our Memorial Day drive this past Monday, I told S a story from the archives of my past. It goes something like this: My maiden name is Marshall; I grew up on a road named after my family in a town with a population of 1,500. There wasn't a stoplight in town and most of the folk were farmers. This road became the happening place for bike races, rollerblading, walking with the aunts and uncles, and all kinds of roaming around through corn and tobacco fields. There wasn't a fear of anything bad happening. After all, every imaginable Marshall relative of mine lived as our neighbors.

Among my favorite pastimes was cherry picking. Mind you, I didn't bring my big, berry picking bucket along with me. It was just me and my Uncle Pete's cherry tree. Well mainly, it was the tree and my belly. Cherry picking was tricky though. These cherries were the sourest, red bing cherries around. I wasn't competing with any one else for these prized sourpusses; it was those pesky blackbirds that I had to outsmart. My Uncle would put shiny, tin pans in the branches of the trees to keep the birds away, but his attempts weren't successful.

When the cherries were just barely ripe enough to eat, I would head down to the cherry tree and start eating. I knew when I left that cherry tree to head back home that it might be the last time I got any cherries until the next year. And I loved those cherries.

And so to fight against the odds, I'd eat if there were still cherries hanging by their little stems.
I would eat until my belly was just too full to take another.
I'd eat until I made myself sick of sour cherries.

Well. The point of all of this is this: tomorrow is my 27th birthday. And to celebrate this, I indulged myself with some of


I thought to myself when I picked up these beauties that I would savor every cherry.
I'd make them last for days.
I'd even share them with my kids.
I'm here to say that although they are not all gone yet, they almost are.

I discovered two things today. I still love cherries.
And cherries don't fall far from their trees.