Strawberry Morning

I’m an early riser. Several times a week I exit the house at 6:30 AM on my way to the road for my morning jog/walk (I walk up and down the hills and jog on the flats pretty much…so, since I live on a hill, I guess it is a walk/jog, not a jog/walk). That early hour is so quiet…birds chirping, the sun still behind Whiskey Ridge. And, the hour, the chirps, something about the feel of the morning and the sun not quite but almost up, takes me back to 12 years old.

We were early risers. Often we’d be on the road at 6 AM in the old Nash Rambler heading over the hill as a family to the strawberry patch. Or, we’d be on a 30 minute drive up the Columbia to Sauvie’s Island to pick beans. Often the entire family picked in the fields. We'd start early to escape the heat.

This morning it’s a Strawberry morning.

It’s misting lightly. And I remember the berries through the bushes. Today my hands wouldn’t get stained as much as normally. We’d use lemon juice at home to get the stains off. Today, it was like God was giving the berries a light pre-packing rinse. The mist was coming down, and before we were 10 feet up the row, we would be wet up to the elbows from pawing through the plants looking for those juicy red strawberries.

It was in the berry patch that I learned how to work. My friends went there to play…but then their mom wasn’t in the next row. I learned to make a game out of things: like who can pick the most, and who can eat the least strawberries in a season (in the field of course, not at home where Mom would put that lip-smackin’ shortcake on the table). I remember that in a good season I could earn a hundred dollars…enough for school clothes and, one year, that coveted electric train set from the Sears Roebuck catalog (still have it after it circulated through my nephews and my son).

I remember the red berries rattling into the boxes in the carrier (a carrier held six boxes each about 5 inches square and 2 inches high, arranged 2 x 3, with a wooden bar handle you could lean on when you got up from the row, or with which you could carry the 6 boxes down the row to the check in stand.) You soon learned to carry 4 carriers each trip, filling them one at a time, but leaving them in the row behind you. However, you had to keep your eyes on them and not get too far or they would take “legs” and “walk” away. Six boxes made a carrier and 12 boxes a flat, in which they were stacked and trucked to the packing plant.

When it rained, the mud would cake up on the bottom of the carrier. And, if it rained too much, you’d be carrying as much mud as berries. And, of course, with too much rain, the berries would get mushy.

So, by now it is no longer misting. It is not just sprinkling. It is raining, and I’m in the old Nash, or maybe it’s the old 51 Studebaker (its front-end looked something like an old jet). We’re huddled in the back seat, waiting for the rain to let up so we can go back to the patch…at least some of us in the car are waiting. I know I’m not waiting. I’m praying! I’m praying for a rain-out, so we can all go home and go back to bed.

By now I’ve nearly finished my 33 minute route across into Tuscany and up the hill behind it near the new high school (where we used to get our Christmas tree every year). I’m nearly home and now it isn’t misting, it is drizzling, and maybe even close to raining.
Guess I won’t be mowing the lawn this Strawberry morning .

Lamentations 3:22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." 25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.