Watermelons

I was in Little Rock’s Fresh Market with Vertis last Thursday when I spotted a large cardboard container filled with watermelons. Yes, they drew me like a bee to honey because I love watermelons. I was standing there thumping the melons looking for a perfectly ripe one, because few days earlier, we’d bought one from a suspect Farmer’s Market, and I didn’t thump it. Sure enough it wasn’t ripe, and we had to throw it away. This time I was going to be sure, and I was into my 5th melon thumping when a lady who was watching me thump, said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find a watermelon melon that’s ripe,” I said.

“They’re all ripe,” she replied.

“No they are not. Some are overripe, some are green, and some are ripe.”

“You can tell by thumping them?” she questioned.

“Yes.”

There was some head shaking as she walked away, and I could tell she just didn’t drive over from Dumas to shop in Little Rock. But you watermelon thumpers know you can tell if a watermelon is ripe, green or overripe, and for you non-thumpers, I’m going to tell you how.

I’m a left handed, index finger watermelon thumping person, but I think even right handed folks can tell whether a melon is ripe. This is how you determine whether a melon is overripe — which is just as bad as under-ripe — and which melon is green (not ripe) and which melon just right ripe:

First, you thump the center of the melon, and listen. If you hear a thumping sound, which is higher and almost rings when you thump the melon, it means the melon is not ripe, and the higher the sound the greener the melon. If you hear a softer thump, you have a ripe melon, but if it is very soft sound you have an overripe melon. The trick is to back off the high pitch sounding melon and go toward the softer thump. Then take a look at the stem. A brown stem means the melon may be overripe because it has been harvested for a while. No stem may mean an imported melon. The stem you are looking for is a fresh green one. That, and medium soft thump, and you have a fresh ripe melon.

Watermelons make me think back to high school, and how several of us would help certain farmers thin their watermelon patch. You know, you thin to get better melons on the end of the vine. Well, our thinning was usually at night, and yes, since the statute of limitations has surely run out, I’ll confess. I’m a former watermelon thief, but I haven’t swiped one in a long while. Thinking back, it seems the last one was with good friends from Norphlet, Edward Lee McCall, and Jimmy Edwards. Edward Lee and I were seniors and Jimmy was a sophomore in Norphlet High School. Well, the watermelons we were going after were in a big patch just off the Smackover Highway, and you could see hundreds of melons just by driving by, and since you could see them from the highway, a daylight thinning raid was out of the picture.

We’d been to the seven o’clock show at the Rialto, and at nine o’clock, with a bright, full moon, we headed for that watermelon patch. We were in Jimmy’s car, and he was going to let Edward Lee and I out, drive on down the highway, turn around, while we ran out in the patch and grabbed up a couple of watermelons. Then we’d run out of the

patch with a watermelon under each arm, hop in the car with the melons, and drive back to the Macmillan Park where we would eat them.

It didn’t turn out the way we planned. I guess, maybe after what happened, is why I haven’t thinned a watermelon patch since that fateful night. Jimmy, who was just a sophomore, whined to Edward Lee and I who were seniors that maybe we shouldn’t steal an old farmer’s watermelons. But we told Jimmy that the farmer always planted too many, and about half of what he planted would probably be left to rot in the field, and he wouldn’t care if we got a couple. Yeah, a sophomore will believe anything.

Well, it started out okay, even though we had to climb a barbed wire fence. But in a few minutes, we were right in watermelon city thumping watermelons. Shoot, we weren’t about to go to all the trouble to swipe watermelons and have them not be ripe, but in a few minutes, Edward Lee and I were heading to the road with a watermelon under each arm. Yes, we had trouble with the fence, but after Edward Lee put his melons down and climbed the fence I handed him the four melons, climbed the fence, and we stood there on the side of the road. I had a melon under each arm. In a few minutes we saw a car coming, and as it slowed down, Edward Lee picked up one of his two watermelons and reached for the back door handle. That’s when I noticed it wasn’t Jimmy’s car.

“That’s not Jimmy!” I yelled. But Edward Lee had already pulled open the car’s backdoor and was getting in the back seat with one of his watermelon under his arm.

The next thing I heard was, “You watermelon stealing thieves!”

Yeah, it was the old farmer who lived across the road, who must have seen us going into the watermelon patch. Well, what happened then is still vivid in my memory. Course, I was standing there with a watermelon under each arm, and I’m sure my hair stood on end as I dropped those watermelons like they were on fire, and yelled to Edward Lee, “Run!” and run we did, straight back toward the watermelon patch, and how we got over the fence is just a blur, but I ended up with a ripped shirt, as the old farmer yelled, “Momma hand me my shotgun.” Well, that put us in high gear, but what sent us screaming was the boom of a shotgun, and we set a world record of running through a watermelon patch. Well, we were far enough away that the bird shot just rained down around us, and didn’t cause any problems. I think he just shot straight up just to scare the dickens out of us. It worked. Well, running through the watermelon patch wasn’t that hard, but the old geezer had planted about 20 rows of corn along the back fence, and the rows ran parallel to the fence. I can still remember nearly getting beat to death bouncing through those rows of corn. But we made it across the fence and collapsed under a big oak tree.

Then, after walking through the woods back to Norphlet, which took a couple of hours,we spotted Jimmy who was driving back and forth downtown looking for us.

“Thought y’all might have gotten kilt,” he said as we hopped in his car.

“Naw, he missed,” I muttered.

That was my last try at thinning a watermelon patch.