This summer I fell back in love with watermelon. Its vibrant colour blend of deep pinks and greens. Its cool, juicy sweetness. Its ability to nourish, hydrate, and delight the palette while soothing a dry, often irritated by allergies, grumbly throat.
I have always enjoyed watermelon. It is my favourite of all the melons. It’s also one of those triggers that throws me back into the memories of childhood and the oppressive heat of long, hot summer days in an era before most homes or vehicles were air conditioned. The only “cooling stations” around were lawn sprinklers. And in our neighbourhood, the only swimming pool in the area was the public pool whose hours were divided between lessons in the mornings, open swim in the afternoon, and adults only in the evening … although weekend swim time was always an option as there were “family swim days”.
It was also a time before seedless watermelon was a thing. I remember being in the backyard with my brothers and some of the neighbourhood kids. We were sitting haphazardly in a circle of chairs and overturned buckets acting as chairs. One of the buckets was right side up in the middle of us all. Each of us had a paper towel and a wedged slice of watermelon, with the remaining wedges in a bowl on the wooden picnic table behind us, along with more paper towels and the garden hose faucet for clean-up as needed.
The game was on. The challenge was to see who could spit the highest number of watermelon seeds into the bucket in the middle of the circle before the entire watermelon was eaten. The rules were simple. You could sit or stand but could not move closer to the bucket without getting yelled at by the other players. You had to actually eat the watermelon down to the rind so as not to waste any, and the rinds had to also be tossed into the bucket and not left on the ground beside you. Sometimes there would be an adult present to make sure things didn’t digress into a battle over who was winning and who was “cheating” … and sometimes, that’s when the garden hose came in handy to “cool off any hot heads” with a quick spray of cold water! Lol
While the advent of seedless watermelon has, for the sake of clean kitchen floors, reduced the need for children to only consume it outside, it has also taken away the goofiness of seemingly simpler times. Times when it was kind of okay to “accidently” spit seeds at people and altogether miss the bucket. Although, looking at that from the perspective of an adult, maybe that’s for the best.
Remember to let your inner child come out to play!
Keep smiling – Wendy xo
