Apricots

It's summer and as I make my way through the aisles of produce section of the super market the bins are full to the brim with all manner of seasonal fruit, peaches, nectarines, plumes, grapes, and, of course, orange gold apricots. Inevitably I am taken back seventy or more years to when I lived on Mentoria Court in Pasadena. Summer meant raiding the apricot trees that were heavy with fruit in the abandoned lot that was on the corner. It was a challenge as to who would get the best fruit --- us or the birds.

By us I mean, Ethyl, Billy, and I who were the only kids who lived on this dead end street with four houses on each side. Ethyl and Billy were older than me. I was eight or nine and lived in the second house from the corner with my mom, dad, and Nana, my maternal grandmother. It was a rather ordinary ranch style house just like the others on the street except for the house next door where Mrs. Le Ritz lived. Her house was a white gingerbread house surrounded by glorious rose bushes and an impossibly lush green lawn. Mrs. Le Ritz was a widow lady who kept much to herself and tended to her roses. She had few visitors. From time to time someone would come and pick her up. I think it was her daughter. Mrs. Le Ritz looked every inch the picture of a lady in a floral flock and big hat as she walked down the drive and got in the car. In the few years we lived there we never go to know Mrs. Le Ritz well except to say “Good Morning” occasionally. It was just that we had nothing in common.

Ethyl was Ethyl Jacobs and her father was a junkman who roamed the streets with decrepit truck and picked up scrap metal and anything else people might discard that might be salvageable. They lived directly across the street and their backyard was a treasure trove . It was great fun and adventure to scrounge through the latest acquisitions and wonder where they had come from.

Billy Williams lived at the end of the street. Billy’s father had a good job and their house was well kept and had huge front porch where we used to hang out. Billy had a marvelous talent. He had a knack for building model airplanes. His father built him a little shack where he could keep his supplies and build his models. I spent many hours there with Billy watching and wishing I had his skill.

But let’s get back to the apricots. The vacant lot did have a house that had been boarded up for years but we never got up enough nerve to try to explore the empty house. It was enough that there were four huge apricot trees that bore golden fruit faithfully each year. I have not been back there for many years. I doubt that the street even exists any longer. It is probably buried under a new freeway. But never mind, the memories are freshened each year as I stop in the produce section and fill a bag with apricot memories.