Holiday

Before I even knew that there was a national day devoted to watermelon, much less that that day was this day, I stood in the kitchen this morning chopping up a small, round, dark green watermelon that came in our CSA box on Thursday. It was perfectly ripe-- crisp and sweet-- but unlike most of the melons we see these days, it was also full of tiny seeds.

Heidi was next to me, sampling the cubes as I cut. "This is a good, one!" she proclaimed, "Except for the seeds."

I shrugged in agreement. "But it's so old-fashioned," I said. "Remember when we were kids? watermelon always had lots of seeds."

"Right!" she nodded. "We always had to eat it outside."

"I know," I said, "like right after we went out to peel the corn? We ate watermelon."

"Yeah," she replied, "and we spit the seeds into the grass!"

We were silent for a moment, and then she continued, "And wished that watermelons would grow there!"

Yes. That's exactly how it was.

Happy National Watermelon Day!