GRAPEFRUIT

A friend in Wisconsin is always saying she wrote a great e-mail and then.....lost it. Well, in writing a post on grapefruit last night, the same thing happened to me. Let's see if I can do a clever re-write, I will dedicate it to Karen.

Old Trunks wishes to ask you, how did you eat your grapefruit? Did your mother loosen the sections with a paring knife, sugar it, and put a cherry on the top. Did the sugar turn red from the cheery cherry being too juicy?

What is the difference between pink and white grapefruit and why is pink more pleasing on a blink winter school day?

Old Trunks asked herself all these questions last night as she said on the leather sofa with a non loosen sectioned pink grapefruit with sugar. When finished, she asked for a tissue to clean the juice off the arm of the couch, her glasses, and her fingers. That is when she remembered why mother fixed the grapefruit for the family; Daddy didn't like the juice on his glasses which he cleaned with his handkerchief in the morning while making himself ready for the day.

Odd, isn't it, that a great friendship got started because a man from Arkansas peeled his grapefruit. He was a chronic lung person and was in the hospital with his ailment. I would bring him a grapefruit every day with a smile face on it. The doctor asked him why he had grapefruit lined up on his window sill, after all, it was offered on the menu. He told her he didn't like them cut. She wrote an order for him to have a whole grapefruit each day he was there. Between the kitchen and myself bringing/giving, he was his own personal citrus grove.

Speaking of groves, in 1955 our family went to Florida in the winter for a holiday. Among other places we visited was Sarasota. We stayed at a place called the Pink Cloud Motel. These folks owned a citrus grove. The owner, a lady from Brazil, took my brother and I to the orchard to pick fruit for the clients of the motel. We picked grapefruit, oranges, and tangerines. My favorite was tangerines because they were easy to peel. Until, of course, I learned the secret from my friend. You just have to roll it on the table like you do an orange to peel it. Actually, it is sweet enough to eat in sections just like an orange.

Anyway, last night, I finished the blog and highlighted it to spell check it and whoosh it was gone. It had been a long day and I only thought about Karen. I emailed her to tell her what happened, signing off with I was going to hit the sack, which is what my Dad always said when he was going to bed. We got into the sack and I told Tom that Daddy always said that or "sack up the bats".

I told Tom I never could figure out what "sack up the bats" meant, thinking of course, of the critters which fly in the night. Tom only answered with "well, who did it?" It wasn't until that moment that I realized it was a baseball term and sacking the bats meant that the game, (day in Daddy's case), was over and it was time to put the bats in the bag. Now that I have that 60 year old question solved I can move on to something else.

My children will enjoy remembering a phase of candied grapefruit rinds. They will remember I tried to encourage them to eat them. They will remember they did not.

Meanwhile, it is time to get the bats out of the bag.

Play ball! Eat Grapefruit. AND CHECK YOUR DRAFT DOCUMENTS.

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