Fruit from the Tree

There is nothing like eating fruit picked from the tree. I have always felt that way, regardless of the potential wormholes and wasp bites on the fruit. I was happy to find I'm not the only one.

For example, there's my friend who lives in Guadalajara.  He was the fruit he had for breakfast -- mango, apples,"tuna" from cactus, oranges, plums, and all kinds of wonderful fruits. At first I thought that he had purchased them in the town near his "rancho" near Guadalajara, Mexico. But, he said he picked them himself -- that several years ago he put in a little orchard, and that for him, there is no greater pleasure than strolling through it in the morning and picking fruit that is still wet with dew.

My parents had fruit trees, and I loved eating cherries, peaches, apples, pears, and persimmons. But, hands down, the fruit I like to eat most from the tree is grapefruit. What I like about grapefruit is that it's such a random thing; you never know what you'll get. The fruit can be really sweet, or really bitter, or somewhere in between, and you can never tell by its color, size, or even firmness.

The first time I picked a grapefruit was on New Year's Eve when I was 15 years old.  I was in Palm Springs, California, accompanying my dad on a trip. He was the head of a contract mining company, and one of the companies, Atajo Mining (short cut mining!), was not performing, and he was going to have to enter in some rather difficult conversations. He had told me all about it as we drove across the desert from Phoenix to Palm Springs. 

While he was in negotiations, I was riding bicycles and horses at locations near the hotel where we were staying. Nothing was going as planned. I was seriously saddle-sore from riding a horse for 4 hours instead of the 1 hour, and I felt very alone. It was late afternoon and I had a few hours to kill before my dad came back to the hotel to go to a New Year's Eve celebration. I decided to sit outside, relax, and read a book. My room was perfect for it, because it had a small patio shaded by a grapefruit tree that was bursting with bright yellow fruit, and many felt soft and ripe to the touch.  I picked two grapefruits and tried them. They were wonderfully bitter (I love bitter things), as was the time itself or perhaps, let's say, bittersweet...

But, that's another story and one I'll save for another time. Another story would be based on the saying that fruit never falls far from the tree where it grew, referring to characteristics of a child and his or her parent. That's a saying that fills me with angst and dread, but again that's another story. 

In the meantime, every time I think of a grapefruit tree, I think of that amazing time with my dad, who, interestingly enough, sends me off with a small bag of grapefruits each time I see him.

I'm aware that age and time are linear, but memory is not. Thank goodness for that. If memory were linear, we would lose everything -- there would be some sort of expiration date, I guess, and I'd lose the things I love most -- picking grapefruits, eating them from the tree, while on an unforgettable trip with my father when I was 15.

This photo does not have much (or anything) to do with picking ripe grapefruits and eating them straight from the tree, but it does bring a smile to my face. I'm at the 2014 AAPG-PAPG-PPG Marcellus-Utica GTW. In this picture, there I am (Susan Smith Nash) on the left, looking a bit giddy after facilitating all day. We're standing in front of a poster on XRD. That's Randy Shannon of PMET in the middle, and Dawn Snyder, an attendee and presenter, on the right.