| |
| Everyday
life on Emile Street in Beaumont
in the 1950's was pretty ordinary for a child, mainly consisting of playing outside
with the neighborhood kids when school was out, but it had the occasional high
point, notably the appearance of pears, specifically, our next door neighbor's
pears. Few among our juvenile set could resist the hypnotic pull of those huge,
bright green, tough skinned, crunchy, juice running in rivulets down the chin
pendulums of pleasure. These weren't the soft, juicy Bosc pears from Weingarten's,
Evans' or the Henke & Pillot grocery stores. This was fruit of heroic proportions. |
| Photo
courtesy Julie Clark |
Our neighbor, Mrs.
Juanita Tomlinson, lived in a very neat white frame house with maroon trim and
kept a very tidy yard, lots of thick, succulent, deep green, carpet-like San Augustine
grass that she mowed herself, some dark, dense evergreen shrubs in front and,
running alongside our driveway leading to the detached garage, several sturdy
pear trees, the object of greedy little eyes when the pears put in their annual
appearance. I don't remember that those trees were ever very tall, but they were
hardy. My brother Butch and I had been taught to treat her and other adults politely
and we were allowed to call her Mrs. Nita. She and my mother and aunt shared occasional
cups of coffee and a chat. Sometimes she shared watermelon with us or other treats
by calling out her back door for one or the other of us to come get whatever it
was, and when Mama's figs ripened or she had baked a cake, she shared those with
Mrs. Nita.
Mrs. Nita used to tell our mother how much she liked Butch
and me because we were such sweet and polite children. Now lest you have the mistaken
idea that we were paragons of virtue, I'll readily confess to the usual kid's
antics, running in the front door through to the kitchen followed by 1-7 peers
clomping along behind, with a stop for water at the fridge, every pair of lips
to the same bottle, then out the (slammed) back door, only to return in an hour
or two to repeat the performance. We could be loud, too, really loud. We fell
out of the chinaberry tree that we'd been told not to climb, well, Butch did,
poked tiny holes in the front screen until the hole got big enough to poke a finger
through, whereupon said digit was stung by a yellow jacket (me), and when it was
jerked back through the hole, the wire prongs shredded that poor little finger,
doubling the agony. I got a good bit of sympathy for that. (“I told you not to
poke a hole in the screen. That's what you get for not minding.”) But one thing
we did NOT do was climb those pear trees. No, sirree. Mrs. Nita had told our mother
often enough how much she disliked it when neighborhood kids sneaked into her
yard, climbed the trees and broke the branches. She really didn't mind if we picked
up the pears that fell to the ground and there were always plenty of those to
go around. The snag was our mother told us we couldn't even pick up the pears
on the ground without asking first because anything else was considered stealing
and “I'd better not catch you doing that, do you hear me?” I'll say this for her,
she was pretty consistent. If you were told a couple of times not to do something
because you were going to “get it” and you still flew in the face of all good
reason, then you got it.
We loved those pears, did Butch and I. They played
an irresistible siren song through all of the weeks they were ripe. Even before
they were fully ripe they called out “Sissy! Over here!!” and “Butch! Hey, Butch,
it's us, the pears! “ and “Step right up! Getcher big juicy pears right here.”
Oh, what to do? What to do? We were pretty bashful kids outside of our
own yard when dealing one on one with grown ups, but we did want access to those
pears. We settled between us that we would go knock on Mrs. Nita's back door together.
As for which of us came up with our snappy verbal approach, I really don't remember,
but thereafter we showed up at her door regularly with “Mrs. Nita, can we steal
some of your pears?” I don't think she ever refused us and I figure she must have
had a good laugh once the door was shut. For us, I think it was worth the bellyaches
we endured from eating too many pears at a time, clearly a case of being delighted
with, rather than to, the very fiber of our beings.
© Frances
Giles
"True Confessions and Mild Obsessions"
October 5, 2012 Column
Related Topics: Beaumont
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