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Old 06-15-2016, 11:02 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Sarzana,Italy
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Default The Great Cantaloupe Caper

Here some new paintings recently finished along with a short story from my checkered past.
The Great Cantaloupe Caper
Early one morning while getting ready for school I asked my stepfather Ernest if I could have some different school clothes. The other kids dressed nicely; no one in bib overalls with pockets on the side that rulers and hammers fit into except me, and I hated those overalls. He told me that if the clothes he put on my back weren’t good enough, I could earn the money myself and buy my own. From that point on I found ways of earning money. That summer of 1949 I found work following behind the cultivator and sacking potatoes for the farmer who had a nearby roadside stand.
My neighbor Mr. Bisbee was a hard-working Yankee farmer. He had a good farm with a nice herd of Holstein cattle and his roadside produce stand was always full with the very best. He always had the best corn, green beans, wax beans, pumpkins, carrots, red fat Macintosh apples stored in round crates, honey, and his apple cider that was considered to be the best in all of Rockingham County. But the thing I liked the most was the cantaloupes in the fall...
One day, I saw Mr. Bisbee on his red Farm All tractor, cultivator behind, unearthing big Russet potatoes in a cloud of September dust. I took off barefoot and ran across the pasture to where he was working. ‘Mr. Bisbee,’ I called up to him, ‘Can I sack potatoes for you?’ ‘You want to pick potatoes for me boy? Go right ahead.” And he continued on down the rows uncovering more potatoes. I grabbed a burlap sack from off the wagon and started scooping up potatoes.
It was mid-afternoon when I started and by the time I had picked five sacks full, I was getting very hungry. So I stopped, dragged all the sacks off the field next to the wagon, had a good drink of water and then went to Mr. Bisbee who was still bent over sacking potatoes and told him that I was going home and would he pay me for my work. He stood up from his sack of potatoes and looked down at me as I asked for my money. Five sacks of potatoes were worth fifty cents. He returned to picking up potatoes and said, “Boy, you said you wanted to pick potatoes. I didn’t say anything about paying you. Now you get on home.”
In the late summer when the air at night is so sweet and whippoorwills lamented while fireflies glowed like tiny paper lanterns; I slept outside- to the relief of the entire house. My cot was under the lean-to of the chicken coop and most nights had the company of Buddy, a big gray and white rooster. We got along just fine once I got the part of the chicken that goes over the fence last, pointed in the right direction away from my head. A big dollop of chicken shit was not what I needed on the back of my head. When the nights were clear with no worry about rain, I would take my blanket and sleep under the white pines, the fallen needles raked into a fragrant comfortable mattress. My best friend Donald had begged his folks to have permission to stay over. We both lay under the September moonlight talking.
I told Don about the potatoes and non-payment by Mr. Bisbee. It was then we decided we should get even by sneaking up to his farm and steal his melons. The melons were ripe for plucking and we knew exactly in what part of the garden they lay. Our plan was to walk up the road until we got to the cornfield, cut through it, climb under the fence and carry off as many melons as we could.
Everything went quite well until we got to the fence. Then the whole plan unraveled. We were on hands and knees when we ran into the herd of Holsteins... They must have thought we were a pair of timber wolves. They snorted, stamped their hooves and stampeded, then crashed right through the garden fence, mooing and moaning- and ended up in our melon patch.
Don and I turned and hightailed it back to our camp. We were too excited by the commotion we had stirred up to be able to sleep, so after an hour or so we decided to steal cider. Mr. Bisbee kept his cider in gallon glass jugs on the north side of his produce stand under the shelf that held the boxes of apples. This presented us with the possibility of being seen as the house was on the other side of the lawn, exposing us to view.
We decided on the direct approach like Bonnie and Clyde. We would hit quickly and be gone in a flash. We arrived at our target and waited to be sure no one was up. After a while, our heartbeats settled down a bit. We counted; ‘one, two, and three…’ and then we were off. Donald grabbed his two jugs and I had mine in my hands when the hound dogs began to bark. We took off and ran straight into a little wire fence Mrs. Bisbee had placed around a bed of petunias. Both Don and I went flying through the air, head first into the flowers. I dropped both jugs and was crawling in the moonlight looking for them. Don was up and running, looking for the ditch. I was determined to leave with the cider I felt I had earned in the potato patch. I finally found them, got things under control and ran.
We took the jugs down into the back woods near the giant oak and buried them.
We thought cider was like beer. Don and I would climb up the oak, pass a jug back and forth between us, talk about the robbery and laugh ourselves silly. A few days later I was walking over to Don’s house and as I slinked by the produce stand, Mr. Bisbee called me over. “You were up here the other night stealing apples, boy?” he accused me. “No sir, Mr. Bisbee. I never stole an apple from you, I swear to God I didn’t.” I turned and went running down the road, feeling pleased with the fact that for once I had not told a lie.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg man and his dog 001.jpg (75.2 KB, 0 views)
File Type: jpg Abstract # 10 001.jpg (74.0 KB, 0 views)
File Type: jpg RED RIDING HOOD.jpg (66.6 KB, 0 views)
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