Potomac, MD – Saturday morning, two days before Memorial Day, our daughter, Denise, son-in-law Jim, and our two grandchildren, Matthew and Danny invited my wife and me to a pick-your-own adventure in the strawberry beds of Homestead Farm, about 15 miles away in Poolesville, Maryland.
This was a family affair, with many parents supervising their young ones, as they moved methodically between rows, picked strawberries, ate some, and deposited the rest in wide, waxed-bottom cardboard boxes. I think the $1.89 price per pound included a ‘field eating tax’!
While filling my own box, I overheard a nearby child asking his mother, “Mom, there’s a green part on the end of this strawberry. Can I eat it?” With no small degree of concern, his mom quickly responded, “Wait, don’t eat it until I take the green end off for you.” Since I, myself had taken advantage of the ‘eating tax’ while filling my own basket with sun-warmed berries in 90º heat, I reflected upon the meaning of that protective mom’s reply.
If you have enjoyed strawberry picking for an hour or two of fun – an activity that migrant workers do all day for a living – you may agree that the flavor of an occasional small green end of a farm-fresh, just-picked crimson strawberry blends in with the sweet taste of this melt-in-your-mouth treat. To check this, I set out to find several more berries with that characteristic: I can attest that, unlike the store-bought variety, there is no issue here.
It seems to me that our kids would be a lot better off with regard to their character formation, if we simply let them be a little riskier out in the strawberry beds of life. The little green ends that they sometimes encounter are no big deal.
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