THE DAY MY CANTALOUPE TURNED BLACK

Monday, August 23, 2010

I was four or five years old. I can't remember exactly. I was playing in our front yard.

My mother was standing on the porch of a neighbor across the street. Across the street wasn't very far in those days. The streets weren't very wide and this one wasn't paved. It was just red Oklahoma dirt and sand.

My mother called for me to come over saying the neighbor lady had something she wanted to give me.

I went hopping, skipping and zig-zagging across that street. The dirt was hot and there were thorns all over.

I arrived on the porch with a big smile on my face and my mother told me the nice neighbor lady had gone to get me a cold piece of cantaloupe. I'm sure my smile grew bigger and my eyes widened.

In just a moment the neighbor returned. She opened the screen door and bent down to hand me the cantaloupe.

No sooner did I see it than I went back across the street much faster than I came. And this time I wasn't smiling I was crying.

That slice of cantaloupe was covered with the blackest pepper I had ever seen. (Of course I hadn't seen a lot of pepper--or cantaloupe. I was only four or five.)

My mother was embarrassed by my silly reaction and never could understand.

This was an early lesson for me that hopes and dreams are sometimes dashed by the smallest of things.

Who puts pepper on a little kid's cantaloupe? 

Using pepper and cantaloupe as metaphors, I have had a lot of pepper put on my cantaloupe over the years.  You either suck it up and learn to live with it or you cry a lot!