Don't you just love to eat watermelon ?
      I remember as a child, sitting cross-legged in the grass, barefoot, wearing shorts and shirtless, eating large pieces of watermelon with juice running down my chin and across my belly.  After eating as much as we could, we'd be a mess.

      Clean up could be fun though.  If we were at the creek, back into the water or if we were home, we'd run through the sprinkler until we were clean or they would spray us with the water hose.

     What kind of melon did you like best? Those big round ones with the dark green rind or those long ones that were a light green.  How did you like it sliced? Thick slices across like a half moon, or those long slices the length of the melon that look like canoes when you finished? 

    When did they taste best?  After earning them for working in the yard or when you had dinner in the back yard because the house was too warm. They were always great at the picnic at the local swimming hole. 

       I remember how good they were when we took a break in the hayfield when baling hay. They were good eating in the dark too; like in the middle of your neighbor's melon patch late at night.

      Some how it isn't the same when I visit my local restaurant and see those melon balls on the salad bar.  I don't care if they have 3 or 4 varieties and they're good for us. It's just not the same and I'll be danged if I'll eat them with the same gusto as when we had real watermelons.

Why, it would be a shame if I got watermelon juice on my shirt.  I have to politely put my seeds on the edge of my plate instead of seeing who can spit them the farthest. Heck! How can you have a seed spitting contest with a seedless watermelon.

      Even buying them at the market isn't the same as buying them from a farmer sitting in the back of a truck on the side of the road.

     Oh for the days of our youth, when the pleasures were few and simple like swimming in a shallow creek on a hot afternoon, swinging on a rope hanging from a tree limb and screaming like Tarzan.  Lying in the grass after eating our fill from a spring chilled watermelon.

      Well, I've had my watermelon, although it wasn't as good as I remember, it was pretty good. I think I'll lie down, take a nap and maybe visit the old days when we had seed spitting contests, and the rinds would be piled up like bones in a boneyard.