By Jennifer Savage
I have 80 pounds of peaches sitting on my front porch. Excessive? Maybe, but when I bit into the first one tonight I couldn’t help but smile.
The T-shirt read: You can squeeze our peaches but you can’t beat our meat.
It was my first job. I worked at a one part gas station, one part fruit stand, one part butcher shop in my hometown. Luckily, I never actually had to wear one of those shirts. They were mostly lore among the other teenagers I worked with but I did once see one. There it was – a saying – a little lewd, a little funny but splashed across a yellow shirt with giant, faded peaches on it.
This is, of course, in a state where one of the largest state colleges, the University of South Carolina, has a Gamecock as its mascot. A fighting chicken probably doesn’t raise the ire of many folks but the first time you see a COCKS hat out of context, it’ll make you look twice. We’re used to it, as Gamecock fans. We’re used to in garnet and black on everything you can possibly imagine on a fall Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina. We’re used to it on our cheerleaders’ backsides, we’re used to it when 80,000 people holler GAME then COCKS at each other at Williams-Brice stadium. What can say?
Go Cocks!
Somehow it isn’t offensive, cocks, and somehow neither were the T-shirts at the Peach Stand. Maybe I was too young to notice. What I did notice was the spring after I turned 15 my stepmother set about looking for something productive for me to do. She was from this town, knew the owner of the Peach Stand and within a few minutes of talking to him, I had a job. That’s how things are done where I’m from. When your mama went to school with the boss’ sister or something like that and they’ve all known each other since kindergarten, you get a job.
That’s how it came to be that I was a peach girl. I went to work that summer early every morning when it was still cool outside which is to say it hadn’t quite gotten to 90 degrees yet. We’d cull basket after basket of peaches, putting over ripe fruit into a basket that we’d keep under the counter for Mrs. Teal.
She’d call mid-morning, “Hey honey, got any culls?”
“Yes ma’am,” we’d say.
We’d open our little stand and wait for our boss to tell us when the next trailer of peaches would arrive always careful to keep a peach basket between us and him. We’d unload the trailer, split our hands on sharp basket staples and sweat in the heat of the South. Then we’d fill bags, place them in the window and wait for customers.
It’s the waiting I remember most. We were situated at the crossroads of two main highways and if anyone was going or coming, we saw it. We had country music on the radio, a prime perch from which to watch a small-town in summer and most importantly, a phone to call in all the happenings to our other friends.
I might have been the best job I’ve ever had.
When Jason drove by in his little read truck, I’d get butterflies that first summer. I’d look down, focus on produce when he stopped in for something for his mother. Then, the next summer, when he crunched my heart, I’d sort peaches in the early morning, talk all day on the phone about my miserable life and go dancing at night with my fellow peach girls. I’d ride horses with Daniel on Saturday mornings later that summer. One of us would bring sausage biscuits. We’d ride through the peach orchards, fish in a pond with red dirt banks. He once brought live crickets as bait and I can still remember them jumping onto my hand as I reached into the cup to grab one. That’s when I remember thinking for the first time there’s something to this country boy thing. But, alas, Daniel and I always hovered around friend. Then came a blonde soccer player with a funny name who had me all butterflies again and I dated him until the end of college.
Those summers working at the Peach Stand, that’s when Cathy started dating Ben, when Alex moved to some northern school called MIT, when we rolled Katherine’s house and got in so, so much trouble. It was when Brian and Matt worked in the butcher shop. When Matt was dating Kim and Tonya worked the cash register at the front of the store. It was when Lee dated Lee and Nikki would get us, in all our teenage awkwardness, onto the dance floor at BarNone, Coyote Joe’s and that sketchy little place on Highway 21 that I’m kind of glad I’ve forgotten the name of. It was summer soft nights and going to the dam and tonight when I bit into a ripe peach all of it, every memory, was dripping down my chin.
I have a friend who has a little problem with the Twlight movies. I think she’s seen the last one two or three times. She’s read a few too many articles about Robert Pattinson, the Brit actor who plays the tall vampire Edward. This friend is definitely on Team Edward, she has no use for Jacob the wolf and can’t believe she’s this interested in any of what I’ve been jokingly calling teenage vampire porn.
“You know what it is,” she said the other day. “It’s seventeen.”
I knew exactly what she meant. It’s the drama, the angst, the time when you know everything before you slowly start to discover you don’t know anything at all. For her, Twlight captures that time, for me, strangely, that time is in a ripe heap of produce.
Another friend has a magnet on her fridge that says, “You couldn’t pay me to be 22 again.” I agree, nor could you pay be to be 17 again. But, I’m going to can these 80 pounds of peaches and on some dark winter night when I open a jar, sit at my kitchen table and roll the sweetness over my tongue, I’ll gladly close my eyes and remember.
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Jennifer Savage is a writer and mama of Eliza and Lucille. Lately, she's learning to be a city girl. She writes from her home in Missoula, Montana. She is also one of Mamalode's favorite writers and you can fall in love with her too at Jennifer-Savage.com Read more of Jennifer's mamalode articles here.
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Holy *&*^* 80 l.b’s Love it! Wish you had a pic of you sitting on your perch at the peach stand.
I made peach marmalade!! Yum.
Wonderful post Jennifer. I so agree with your assessment about memories and how sometimes just a taste can bring it all back. The vampire stuff is good too. I hadn’t quite thought about it in that context, but I’m forwarding this article to my wife, who is a little bit too into Edward for my tastes. Me, I’m a Jacob fan all the way. Always wanted to be a shape shifter.
A good one, friend. I knew exactly what she meant. It’s the drama, the angst, the time when you know everything before you slowly start to discover you don’t know anything at all. yep.
this is beautifully written savage! love it!
This is an awesome piece! I love everything about it. I am sweating in the heat, squinting in the sun and feeling a little of my own 17 year old self.
[...] It was my first job. I worked at a one part gas station, one part fruit stand, one part butcher shop in my hometown. Luckily, I never actually had to wear one of those shirts. They were mostly lore among the other teenagers I worked with but I did once see one. There it was – a saying – a little lewd, a little funny but splashed across a yellow shirt with giant, faded peaches on it. Read More » [...]
Saw where this was reposted on facebook – great work as always!