A Slice of Americana,

If You Please

My son Patrick and I had settled into the dark of the living room for our nightly ritual. The incandescent, flittering figures of the television screen by turns made us laugh or shake our heads in disbelief. The day was winding down. That state of drowsy and not unpleasant boredom had struck us. It was near the end of summer.

We heard noises in the kitchen and knew that my husband was home. He had spent the evening readying soccer fields for the fall season. Keys dropped on the table and there was the rustle of a plastic bag as he came into the living room. Flicking on the light, he exclaimed, "Look what I found!" It's not often that you see a forty-three year old man looking like a ten year old, but I did that night. He was sweaty and filthy, covered with dirt and grass, but he was clutching a prize beyond description in his hands - a plastic shopping bag full of the biggest, plumpest blackberries I've ever seen. He dug through the bag looking for the most exquisite of specimens and held them out to Patrick and me to taste. The first was a touch sour, but looking at the expression on my face, he immediately delved deeper into his treasure and extracted an even better version of the rarified treat. "Try this one. Careful now, it's very soft..."

Indeed, it was perfect. Meltingly sweet.

"You have to bake a pie...tonight!" And then, as if realizing that perhaps I might not share his enthusiasm at the prospect of baking a pie at nine o'clock at night, he added softly, "Can you?"

My husband's pursuit of berries is beginning to reach legendary proportions. We have transplanted blackcap bushes from my mother's old house to our back hill. For those of you who don't know what blackcaps are, they're black raspberries. In the springtime, my husband will walk through the undergrowth as it begins to form buds, greedily eyeing the mere twigs that will eventually sprout into full-fledged bushes. When summer comes and the berries are ready, he hurries home every night to pick them. The first week that he gathered berries, I was obliged to make blackcap jelly. It's not an unpleasant task. It's fun in a childish sort of way. You throw the berries into an old pillowcase, tie them to a cupboard handle, and squeeze the juice from them into a bow. Do not plan on going anywhere remotely elegant for several days as your hands will be stained a lovely purple hue.

The jelly is heavenly. There is no other word for it. People rhapsodize over it, letting the flavor linger in their mouths as they close their eyes and smiles curve their lips. Right now, my tiny refrigerator freezer is stocked to overflowing with the berries which will eventually meet a similar fate.

Do not think that my husband stops with our yard. Oh, no. He eyes fields along the route to work, along streams, and his parents'field. Now he is intent upon blackberries. To those of us to whom a dark purple berry of any sort will always be a blackberry, he will quickly correct you. He is passionate about his berries. The berries that he found tonight are blackberries, not blackcaps. He picked them from a field that he has been eyeing for weeks. He has worried about whether or not someone would mind if he picked the berries from their field. Apparently the lure was too much for him tonight, he overcame the obstacles of an overactive conscience and dived in.

I went to work on the pies, making the crust, as my husband tenderly washed the berries and picked through to make sure no little critters remained. When he was done and I was filling the tins with pastry and sweet berries, I suggested that he take Patrick and go get some vanilla ice cream to have with his warm treat.

The berries filled two heaping tins, and after I had put them into the oven, I turned to the sink to begin washing up the dishes. I hadn't gone far when I heard a pop and scream out my back door. Fireworks. I had forgotten that tonight our county fair was having fireworks. I dropped my sponge and went out on the back porch to watch the explosives shower the summer night sky with color. It was pleasant out there. The night air was cool, not quite the tang of fall but getting close. The summer smell of damp grass filtered up to my nose and I heard the sound of crickets mingling with the faint, tinny strains of the "Washington Post March" coming from the fairgrounds. There is something so fundamentally stirring about John Philip Sousa that it is impossible not to burst with pride in your country when you hear his music.

I liked being alone on this back porch in the cool night air, watching fireworks. I watched with a kid's enjoyment. Eager for the next one to go off, waiting with happy anticipation to hear the explosion. Too often I hold myself aloof from these pleasures. I was pleased that no one could see the rather sappy grin that I knew was covering my face.

My son Patrick fell asleep on the living room couch before the pies were done baking. It's summertime. I'm sure that he will wake up in the morning and have a piece of pie and vanilla ice cream for breakfast. Somehow, in August the rules just don't seem to apply.

My husband got inspired while waiting for his slice. He whipped up a pretty fancy pizza and settled down with the paper to wait. I'll finishing writing and go out to the kitchen and join him in eating the fruits of his labors, wrecking my diet one more time, and in general not caring while the cold vanilla takes the heat out of the pie and it lingers on my tongue as a satisfying moment.

Ah. Life may not be great all of the time, but sometimes it certainly does taste good.