Pick the Peaches

I’ve done some pretty serious peach peeling recently. We’ve eaten a lot of them and made peach preserves out of the rest.


When I was in my early teens, I stayed with my grandparents in the summer quite a bit. The farm across the road from my grandparents farm was owned by the McGee family. My grandfather liked old man McGee and he liked my grandfather. They did many trades. One summer my grandfather said that Old Man McGee had given him permission to pick a few of his peaches. My grandfather explained very carefully that I am never to pick a farmer’s crop without permission. A farmer’s crop is money and picking it without permission is like stealing. But with permission, it was okay.

We got up in the morning and went out to the road to get the morning paper for Grandma. We reached across the fence, picked a couple peaches, and took them back to Grandma. She pour a bowl of Wheaties for each of us, the carefully slice the peaches over top. The sugar bowl was placed on the table along with the milk and we were allowed a bowl of Wheaties, peaches, sugar, and milk. Total bliss.