THOMPSON: The magic of picking the perfect watermelon

  OPINION When I was six years old, I liked going with my father to a watermelon farm during the long growing season where I grew up in Florida. He - along with a few other local men - grew watermelons on a large farm near our home, and sold them commercially. I would watch as pickers - mostly Mexican immigrants - loaded trucks in the field before driving off to deliver them as far away as Jacksonville and Tampa and Orlando…100 miles on all points of the compass. Watching the assembly-line efficiency of those loading the truck was fun…after all, I was six…but what I loved most was watching my dad select watermelons that our family would take on picnics…almost every Sunday during the Summer. I thought my father was some sort of mystical wizard…someone with extraordinary fruit-picking abilities. He always chose the perfect, sweetest, most crisp and juicy watermelon…always. He would simply flick his middle finger with his thumb against a prospective melon. He was so good…so precise in his wizardry…that others would ask him to select watermelons. So, the wives of his fellow watermelon-growing friends, Mexican pickers who were knocking off work and wanting to take a melon home…a neighbour passing by…all relied on my dad to choose melons. I marvelled at his finger-thumping routine…his confidence in handing a melon to someone with a smile, and a soft-spoken promise, “You’ll like this one!” Dad was a construction guy…with huge, beefy hands…his fists looked like Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman. How could he gage the delicacy of a watermelon with those rough hands? I must admit I found it laughable as a little kid…a man thumping a watermelon to decide which one was best. I was never sure what my father was listening for when he thumped a watermelon. They all sounded pretty much like thumping a basketball to me. I decided it was part art, part science and perhaps some voodoo that my dad used to devine melons. But, invariably, the next day…usually Sunday…we would pack the car with mom’s Southern fried chicken, potato salad, sliced homegrown tomatoes, a yellow cake with chocolate icing, a jug of sweetened iced tea…and a perfect watermelon…and head to Juniper Springs. Juniper Springs - a half-hour drive from home - was one of our family’s favourite swimming holes and picnic sites. The water was so crystal clear you could see a dime on the white sand 20 feet below. The water temperature was a constant 72-degrees F…but it always felt colder when it was 95-degrees and 90 percent humidity in the “Dog Days” of Summer. The first thing my father did upon arrival was nestle the watermelon in the cold spring’s shallows…nature’s ice box he called it…a throwback to the days before people had modern refrigerators. An hour or so later, we were feasting on huge half-moon slices of watermelon…eating each one’s crisp, red pulp all the way to the white rind. In my memory, watermelons were better back in the 1950s than today. Each bite was so tasty, you didn’t mind the sweet, sticky juice running down your face and arms. Of course, it is a different era. I don’t grow watermelons here in B.C. during Summers. I buy them at Save-On-Foods or Safeway or Butcher Boys. I try my best to select perfect watermelons like my dad. I flick my middle finger with my thumb…just like my dad did. I must do it convincingly…other shoppers often ask if I can pick one for them. I smile, and say, “Of course.” But I’m always glad that I’m not going home with these folks…just in case they cut and find mealy, disintegrating red pulp. I fear running into them at the store the next week and being called out as a fraud. Of course, I learned from my father that watermelons don’t sweeten after being cut off the vines. Peaches and pears and other fruits will sweeten as the ripen…not so with watermelon…they just soften and, well, rot. Turns out that my dad knew something about striking a melon. The sound should bounce back…like a drum…not be absorbed by the melon, which means you have an old, probably mealy melon. Also, my dad always said look for a “yellow belly” on a melon, especially in late Summer. Most watermelons are grown in contact with soil in the U.S. They start white on the soil side, and turn creamy yellow when ripe. Most of the watermelons sold in Canada come from Brazil, India and Vietnam. I dare say my dad never had one from those places…or any other country. His were local Florida melons. And they had seeds…so-called seedless watermelons weren’t a thing back then…and if they had been…I doubt people would have bought them. Besides, when you’re six, half the fun of eating watermelon is spitting sticky black seeds at your brother or friends. Dad’s been gone for 25 years…but I like to think he’d get a kick out of me thumping watermelons in grocery produce aisles. I lack his wizardry for sure…because one thing I know, as a kid, I never...never...had a bad watermelon. — Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines. We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor. mailto:news@infonews.ca