"The pear went over the mountain, the pear went over the mountain...to see what it could see", and how!
I was reminded of those pears, those deep in the pass, almost snowbound pears, when I picked up my copy of Chic Simple's Cooking cookbook this morning. I have that title sitting on my bed amidst the piles of other novels and coffee table art books and cook books and the like. I passed along a copy of that same title to M last spring in her Captain Nemo trunk. I had also packed up a pear print for her that I had lying around the house, but it was too bulky, I am sure, and much too conspicuous to have kept it around. To my delight the image on the inside cover of that Simple Cooking cookbook, of two pears resting up one another, was damn near identical to the print. But, in the end, there was no sense trying to duplicate the image of what was truly a grand moment in our lives.
It didn't start out as anything other than a simple mission. "If you're going to be over there why don't you pick me up a box of pears? We can always split them up when you get back and share the cost" Considering that the eastern side of the Cascades was fruit country, I didn't see a problem with that. I suppose that I wasn't taking into account that mid-November pear season was long past. I have to tell you that I hit up ever fruit stand I could find between Yakima and Boise, as well as a few valley fruit distributors, and the story was the same everywhere I went: no pears after October.
It wasn't until the final afternoon before I hit the grade on the return trip home that I found a box of pears for sale. It was the last box on the shelf at the Thorpe fruit stand right outside of Yakima. The price was right at ten bucks for the box, considering I would have paid twice as much or more for it that day. Was I happy? I was beyond happiness that late afternoon, but I think it was a combination of that euphoria and my indifference to weather reports that put me in harms way later that evening, but nothing mattered at that point: I had the pears.
Face it, M, I wasn't thinking too straight after I picked up that fruit, knowing how much it would please you. I had it in my head to take an alternative route over the mountains instead of hitting I-90, due to what I heard about construction work being done up around the pass that night. I was so caught up in noshing fruit and listening to music that I almost caused myself an extra large load of grief that evening: twenty minutes up the grade outside of town I discovered I was almost out of gas!
Twenty minutes back, a topped off tank and large coffee later I attempted the grade again. This time my troubles were a whole lot different. It had been a pretty cold and wet day that day, but due to the pear search I wasn't paying attention to snow conditions in the mountains. I had chains in the trunk, recently purchased and played with the previous weekend, but they were more "insurance" or a totem form of reassurance of sorts. I never really expected to have to drag them out, but thanks to Don I was ready to.
Well, I almost had to that night. If it wasn't for the tracks left behind that big diesel rig I followed up and over the mountains that evening I am sure that I would have gotten stuck, or worse, stranded, like so many other drivers I saw off to the side of the road that night. I had driven in snow before, but that evening as we hit the pass the snow came down and pummelled us for all it was worth. Total white out. I kept one Celtic band music cassette playing over and over, Banish Misfortune, and somehow, between the big rig truck and the tunes I managed to avoid misfortune that trip. By the time I hit the western slope the snow turned into rain and then it was just chuckles and smiles all the way home.
But M, I know you remember those pears. They were firm, ripe and oh so juicy. It was the way that we held them, savoring them, one at a time, betwix us, between us, that made them so memorable.
I was never able to buy pears again for you that way, by the box load. That was the only time you were able to get them into the house without any grief. I tried that trick almost a year later and it ended miserably. So the gods point out that some things just can't be repeated.
But the morning following the snow storm, the morning you came to pick up your pears, that box of fruit sang out a song to us that was truly a siren's call. We were dashed on the rocks of love that morning in my kitchen, and I am sure at that moment either one of us would have endured the grief of securing that box of pears all over again.
Some things just can't be recaptured, my love, but then again, within the image on the inside of that cookbook, maybe, for a moment, they can.
Your WHMB
I was reminded of those pears, those deep in the pass, almost snowbound pears, when I picked up my copy of Chic Simple's Cooking cookbook this morning. I have that title sitting on my bed amidst the piles of other novels and coffee table art books and cook books and the like. I passed along a copy of that same title to M last spring in her Captain Nemo trunk. I had also packed up a pear print for her that I had lying around the house, but it was too bulky, I am sure, and much too conspicuous to have kept it around. To my delight the image on the inside cover of that Simple Cooking cookbook, of two pears resting up one another, was damn near identical to the print. But, in the end, there was no sense trying to duplicate the image of what was truly a grand moment in our lives.
It didn't start out as anything other than a simple mission. "If you're going to be over there why don't you pick me up a box of pears? We can always split them up when you get back and share the cost" Considering that the eastern side of the Cascades was fruit country, I didn't see a problem with that. I suppose that I wasn't taking into account that mid-November pear season was long past. I have to tell you that I hit up ever fruit stand I could find between Yakima and Boise, as well as a few valley fruit distributors, and the story was the same everywhere I went: no pears after October.
It wasn't until the final afternoon before I hit the grade on the return trip home that I found a box of pears for sale. It was the last box on the shelf at the Thorpe fruit stand right outside of Yakima. The price was right at ten bucks for the box, considering I would have paid twice as much or more for it that day. Was I happy? I was beyond happiness that late afternoon, but I think it was a combination of that euphoria and my indifference to weather reports that put me in harms way later that evening, but nothing mattered at that point: I had the pears.
Face it, M, I wasn't thinking too straight after I picked up that fruit, knowing how much it would please you. I had it in my head to take an alternative route over the mountains instead of hitting I-90, due to what I heard about construction work being done up around the pass that night. I was so caught up in noshing fruit and listening to music that I almost caused myself an extra large load of grief that evening: twenty minutes up the grade outside of town I discovered I was almost out of gas!
Twenty minutes back, a topped off tank and large coffee later I attempted the grade again. This time my troubles were a whole lot different. It had been a pretty cold and wet day that day, but due to the pear search I wasn't paying attention to snow conditions in the mountains. I had chains in the trunk, recently purchased and played with the previous weekend, but they were more "insurance" or a totem form of reassurance of sorts. I never really expected to have to drag them out, but thanks to Don I was ready to.
Well, I almost had to that night. If it wasn't for the tracks left behind that big diesel rig I followed up and over the mountains that evening I am sure that I would have gotten stuck, or worse, stranded, like so many other drivers I saw off to the side of the road that night. I had driven in snow before, but that evening as we hit the pass the snow came down and pummelled us for all it was worth. Total white out. I kept one Celtic band music cassette playing over and over, Banish Misfortune, and somehow, between the big rig truck and the tunes I managed to avoid misfortune that trip. By the time I hit the western slope the snow turned into rain and then it was just chuckles and smiles all the way home.
But M, I know you remember those pears. They were firm, ripe and oh so juicy. It was the way that we held them, savoring them, one at a time, betwix us, between us, that made them so memorable.
I was never able to buy pears again for you that way, by the box load. That was the only time you were able to get them into the house without any grief. I tried that trick almost a year later and it ended miserably. So the gods point out that some things just can't be repeated.
But the morning following the snow storm, the morning you came to pick up your pears, that box of fruit sang out a song to us that was truly a siren's call. We were dashed on the rocks of love that morning in my kitchen, and I am sure at that moment either one of us would have endured the grief of securing that box of pears all over again.
Some things just can't be recaptured, my love, but then again, within the image on the inside of that cookbook, maybe, for a moment, they can.
Your WHMB
No comments:
Post a Comment