The Watermelon Caper

One of my dear "Knob Sisters" stopped by to see me recently and we got to talking about our days of childhood and growing up on the Knob. I had a wonderful visit with her and she reminded me of things I need to add to my writings, things I had almost forgotten.

      I suppose the first one I can tell you about is the "Watermelon Caper."

During our growing up years children of the Knob did not have a cabinet we could go to several times a day and pull out a bag of potato chips.  There were no chocolate candy bars or store bought cookies. RC Cola was a very rare treat, almost non-existent.  Most of our treats grew on the farm, and we could not wait for a big slice of cool watermelon, or a bowl of fruit cobbler. In the early years of the 1940s, you would not get the fruit cobbler if your mama didn’t have the ration stamp to buy sugar for the month. Those made our treats even more of a rare thing. Unless, if there was any home grown honey in the house.  

     I'm thinking the time was around July or August of 1952. Mae and I had been in the fields most of the morning helping to chop out the tobacco, getting rid of weeds and the crap grass. The Knob had a lot of it!  For those of you who grew up on a tobacco farm know the backbreaking work involved in it.  It was sun up until sundown work and very short break between phases of growth.

 A well supplied several families with water and was on the farm that Mae’s dad owned. It was the best water anywhere in the country. Several trees stood around the well and during the hot summer days, the water was so cool it was as if a big chunk of ice lay at the bottom of the well.

Mae and I went to the well to pump us a drink of water….”Boy, a big slice of watermelon sure would taste good right now.” Mae said. Of course, I agreed with her.

My dad had a huge watermelon patch just above the well on a hill. Mae looked at me and said, “Do you think any of Bud’s watermelons are ripe?”

     I don’t know.” I said. We haven’t had any so I don’t think they are.”

    “Why don’t we go and check them out,” Mae said.

We went to the patch and thumped on watermelons for a while and none of them had a sound that pleased Mae. Me being only ten years-old, I had no idea how a ripe watermelon was supposed to sound  when you thumped on it with your four knuckles.  

Mae said, “we just gonna’ have-ta’ plug them to see if they’re ripe. I’ll get mom’s knife from the kitchen and be back soon.”

      When she returned we plugged a couple dozen of those melons that day before we finally gave up and turned the plugged side to the ground.  Little did we know that within a few days those melons were going to rot away from the plant.

     When my dad went to his watermelon patch to check on them I cannot remember a time in my life I have seen him so angry. However, he did not for a second think of it being Mae and I…No, he blamed Mae’s older brother Paul.  That poor boy was in trouble for a week with his dad, and with mine. No matter how hard he tried to tell everyone he was not to blame, nobody seemed to be listening. You can bet that Mae and I kept our mouth shut tight…
                                     Yeah! It was good growing up on the Knob....