Blackerry Bushes in the yard next door...

I bought a pint of blackberries in the vegetable market this week. I didn’t give them too much thought at the time, but when I took them out for breakfast this morning, I remembered my childhood in Little Falls, NJ. I remember the huge, overgrown front yard next door that lead to the unseen home of Mr. Zomzelly. I have no idea if I am spelling his name correctly, because long before I grew up, he had sold the property and disappeared from my life. The property sat vacant for years before someone, eventually, built two houses on it, destroying any hope of more blackberry bushes forever.

Now Mr. Zomzelly was a remote figure in my life. I would see him from time to time, in his overalls and straw hat when he ventured down to our end of his property to cut some bushes or tend to whatever needed tending. He was kind to me whenever I saw him He told me that I was welcome to pick whatever blackberries l wanted from the bushes that grew on his property. Now I was about three or four years old at the time and I loved blackberries. As I stretch my memory back in time, I do not remember being scratched by the thorns on the bushes or encountering any unexpected critters in my search for the delicious treasures. I do remember that the bushes were not close to each other and that the berries were not on the outside edges of the bushes. I remember having to reach deep into the bushes to secure the best, juiciest, biggest blackberries. If I picked enough and they made it all the way home, Mother would mix them with strawberries and we would have a special treat. Unless she came with me, which she sometimes did, most of the berries did not make it home.

As I taste the berries that I bought at the market this week, they do not have the flavor of the ones that live in my memory. The label says they came from Mexico by way of Los Angeles, California…so it is no wonder that they cannot match the flavor of the ones I picked right off the bushes next door.

This is a memory that I would like to share with someone, but my brother was barely toddling at the time and my parents have long been in heaven. I want someone who will verify that these berries were firm and juicy and flavorful and sweet. That their taste would have made it worthwhile to plunge a four year old hand deep into a thorny bush and delicious enough for the memory of the flavor to endure while the memory of the almost certain scratches have disappeared forever.

As an adult, after moving to Hopatcong, I made a friend, through my son….how we make friends when we are parents of young children.

She was and is an original and she knew where there was a patch of raspberry bushes on a vacant lot in a nearby town. I guess I must have told her about my childhood blackberry bushes, so she insisted that I bring a basket and accompany her to these bushes one day when the kids were in school. She is a story in herself, probably many more than one story, but for today I will stick to the trip to the raspberry bushes. Suzy had a car that would make people stop and take notice. It was huge, it was not spectacularly well maintained and it was unusual. It was a Checker Marathon. Checker, for those who are too young to remember, made taxicabs. Where this model came from or how it came into her possession I do not know. However, it was a station wagon of non-descript color and it would easily accommodate all 5 of our children. On this day, Suzy picked me up in the Checker and we headed out with our baskets. I was in my early to mid thirties at the time. It was a beastly hot day and it was shortly after the kids left for school, so mid-morning. The berry bushes were on a road I was not yet familiar with, but one I passed regularly…I guess my spirit of adventure had faded or I was just overwhelmed with raising two boys and keeping a house going. In any event, when I saw the bushes, I did not leap for joy. There were several of them. They did have some raspberries on them. They did sit on a vacant lot on the side of the road. My reaction, had I been alone, would have been to say “Oh well, someone else got here first and got the good ones” and then, to leave. It was not my option. I was a passenger in the car of woman who was the mother of my son’s school friend. I had to be a “good sport”. So when she leaped, enthusiastically out of the car, I followed, carrying my basket.

There were few berries and they were buried deep inside the bushes. It was beastly hot…did I mention that? Every berry I reached for produced a scratch on my hand or arm. I ate one and it tasted good, but not as spectacular advertised by Suzy. I did pick a few and brought them home to share with my husband and kids. They were underwhelmed.

So what I am saying is that middle age probably ruined the raspberries. My blackberries will always remain a singularly amazing treat because my four-year old self was way less jaded than the thirty something who set out to pick raspberries.