A watermelon slice of heaven

I was motoring along, minding my own business, when something along the roadside caught my eye. My gaze was drawn inexorably to a set of green zig-zag patterned orbs that glistened in the sun like seals lazing on a beach.

I pulled over to get a closer look. They were even more alluring up close and soon, my mind was made up. I stuffed some cash into a nearby receptacle and spirited the curvaceous green contraband to the car.

Arriving at home, I tried to sneak them into our house, hoping that my wife wouldn’t catch me. That was dumb. Trying to be sneaky invariably causes my wife’s “what is he up to?” radar to flash.

“What are you up to?” my wife asked as I sauntered casually through the front door.

“Nothing!” I replied, my voice unexpectedly jumping an octave. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re trying to hide something. What did you do?," she persisted.

She saw what I had brought home and shot me “the look.”

“I couldn’t help myself!” I exclaimed. “You know I have a weakness when it comes to melons!”

This is the time of year that I have been waiting for all year long. It’s the season when locally grown melons have finally arrived, throngs of luscious jade and bronze curvaceousness basking enticingly in the summer sunshine.

The melons that are grown close to home are superior to those that were raised in some far-flung corner of the planet and shipped here in the holds of colossal melon freighters.

A few weeks ago, my neighbor and I discussed this melon topic.

“Nancy brought home a watermelon from the store the other day,” he told me. “It looked OK, but it didn’t taste very good.”

I told him that I’d recently had a similar experience, but with a muskmelon.

“Muskmelon shouldn’t crunch like an apple when you bite into it,” I said. “It should be sweet as cotton candy and so tender that it almost melts in your mouth.”

I have tried to grow watermelons and muskmelons in our garden, but the results have been disappointing. The reasons for the failure could have been that I didn’t give the watermelons enough water or our soil contains insufficient levels of musk.

When I was a kid I heard of Forestburg, a mystical, magical South Dakota town rumored to be a place where watermelons and muskmelons thrived, lying thick upon the land like vast herds of vegetative tortoises.

There must be something special about the Forestburg region. Not only do they grow enough roundish fruit to feed the entire state, but the quality of their melons is outstanding. The flesh of their melons is sweet enough to officially be classified as a sugar substitute.

That is why I was unable to resist pulling over when I saw the roadside stand that featured Forestburg melons. It was a self-serve stand that used the honor system for payment. It didn’t matter what price they put on their produce because it had been so long since I’ve had a decent melon that I would have paid whatever it took to lay my hands on a Forestburg fruit.

My wife sliced up the muskmelon, and I popped a piece into my mouth. Oh my gosh! It was everything that I had hoped for and everything that I remembered regarding how that fruit should taste. It almost made my eyes roll back in my head.

The muskmelon was so good that I didn’t want to let anything go to waste. I took the rinds out to our cattle yard and tossed them to our Jersey steers. The steers gobbled the rinds with enormous gusto. They enjoyed the summertime treat as much as I had.

The next day we cut into the watermelon I had brought home. I plunged our biggest kitchen knife into the orb, and it yielded to the blade with a satisfying “crack!” The dusky green rind popped open to reveal succulent, scarlet middle.

I couldn’t help myself; I cut a generous slice, went outside, and sat on the steps. This is the proper way to eat watermelon: outdoors where it doesn’t matter how much juice dribbles down your chin and you can spit seeds wherever you like.

As I sat there eating that crimson melon while gazing out to our emerald lawn, it hit that this was a quintessential slice of summertime heaven. I may have even cried a little. However, it could have just been some stray watermelon juice.