Fruit Picking and Summer Memories

            There is something quintessentially summer in picking fruit. It brings
            back to me treasured memories of childhood-hours spent roaming
            forest and field. These were the two special places of my childhood
            years. In the forest, we discovered the differences between the 
            seasons in tangible ways-the colors and textures of leaves, the habits 
            of squirrels and birds. In the field behind my childhood home we   
            discovered milkweed and wild strawberries. 


            Every summer I would scour the field in search of the best strawberries 
            to bring home to my family. If I was lucky, I would find a 
           "jackpot" which was a large cluster of berries together. The smell of 
            these sweet berries is still with me, as is their distinctive taste.   


            Nothing from my childhood so reminds me of summer,
            nothing from my childhood so resonates with
            memories of carefree summer days. James Whitcomb Riley's poem
           "Barefoot Boy" is the closest literature has come to bringing me back
            to the sights, smells, sounds and feelings of my childhood in rural
            upstate New York.