THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9408040239
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastwise
SOURCE: Ford Reid
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Every time that I buy peaches, I tell myself that I will not eat any of them until I get home. I will not bite into a big, beautiful one and allow the juice to run along my arm to the elbow or to drip off my chin and onto my shirt.
I won't get the steering wheel all sticky or fill the ash tray with peach pits. I won't leave stains on the seat or a little puddle of peach juice on the floor.
Not much, I won't.
The resolve to avoid the peaches and avoid the mess sometimes lasts for a few miles. More often, it lasts until I'm loading the half bushel or so of peaches into the back of my truck.
First, the sight of them gets to me. I look at them, all pink, red and yellow, and I sigh like a love sick boy.
Then comes the smell, subtle and sweet, beckoning with its invitation.
Maybe I'll take just a couple up front with me, I say, and it is all over. Before I pull away from the peach stand, I'm at it, full tilt. Usually, I have to stop once or twice to fetch more from the back. Once I have started, I can not stop.
Despite the brutal winter, the coastal orchards are having a banner year. The trees are heavy with fruit and the fruit is exceptional. This year's peaches are not huge, but who cares? They are sweet, firm, tasty and juicy, all of the things that really matter in a peach.
I am promised that this will last at least another week. Maybe we will get lucky and there will be local peaches for another two weeks.
Then I will go into mourning. Let others mourn the passing of summer or the coming of winter. To me, the saddest day of the year is the one on which the last peach leaves the tree.
I feel sorry for people who never get within reach of a good coastal peach. They don't know what they have missed.
Perhaps even worse is having tasted one once and not getting the chance again. Those poor souls do know what they are missing.
My nephew is one of those.
A few years back he came for a summer visit with my sister and my father. The Currituck orchards were in full harvest and it was a particularly good crop.
For days, we ate one peach after another. We had sliced peaches, whole peaches, peaches on cereal, peaches on ice cream and, of course, several peach cobblers.
My nephew recently told his mother that since then every peach he has eaten has been a disappointment. Some have been better than others, he said, but none has really measured up.
Like an angler who catches a 15-pound bluefish the first time he goes surf fishing, the boy has been spoiled. Until he comes to visit in the summer again, he will never know true peach satisfaction.
It is better, though, to have tasted and lost than never to have tasted.
Hang in there, kid. I'll eat your share until you get here. by CNB