Farmers’ Market: Anticipation
Consider a child’s anticipation of Christmas as represented in the film, “A Christmas Story.”
The most wonderful gift in the whole wide world, at least as far as Ralphie is concerned, is a Red Ryder BB gun. He tries to finagle his heart’s desire from parents, relatives, and finally the department store Santa himself. No down side is apparent to him, even when faced with repeated objections that he “could put an eye out with that thing.” The anticipation of this fabulous gift occupies his every waking moment; it is all he can think about, what he dreams about, and the subject of every conversation he can bend to his will.
Yes, readers need to think about anticipation of Christmas … not the “Oh, run out and rack up bills you can ill afford on your nearly maxed credit cards!” Christmas … not the “We have 22 people coming for turkey dinner and the thing just went up in flames in a turkey fryer!” Christmas … not the “If he gives me one more kitchen appliance as a gift, I am going to divorce him. I swear I will!” Christmas.
Those are Christmases for the chronologically gifted who have allowed their childlike wonder at the holiday to be smothered by too much grown-up “stuff.” However, the itchy, antsy anticipation that Ralphie experiences is possible for all of us, even if the time in which a BB gun is seen by us as the world’s best Christmas gift has both come and gone.
It would seem that we are about as far away from Christmas as we can get, swatting flies and mowing lawns rather than staggering about in too much snow suit and half smothered in multiple twists of a scarf. But there is a phrase associated with this time of year that is at least as evocative for many of us here in the Crown of Maine as “Red Ryder” was for Ralphie. That phrase is “Fresh ripe strawberries.”
In late June and early July, the fruit is sweet and juicy, bright red and ripe, capable of kicking salivary gland production into an embarrassingly high gear. Anticipation of this event occupies our minds like the Red Ryder BB gun … all we think about, all we dream about, the subject of multiple conversations. We think about freezing berries for winter or putting up preserves. We think about strawberry shortcake, strawberry-rhubarb pie, or strawberries on ice cream sundaes.
We think about eating them straight from the box on our Saturday morning visit to the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market, sporting tell-tale bright red lips and fingers. Even if we lock them in the trunk of the car so we can’t get at them on the drive home, we can enjoy a gift even greater than anticipated. The berries are ready!
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
The group’s website is https://sites.google.com/site/presqueislefarmersmarket/
