Grapefruit, Lots of Grapefruit

Thought For The Day

I love Ruby Red Grapefruit. As a matter of plain fact I prefer Ruby Red Grapefruit juice to orange juice and I am a big fan of orange juice. The thing is, as Clint Eastwood put it so well in one of his Spaghetti Westerns, "A man's gotta know his limitations.

When I lived in Florida most of the inhabited space was on a strip of land that was fifteen miles wide from the beach to the everglades. There was mostly farmland beyond that or parks. From time to time I would venture out beyond civilization to see what was happening but most of the time we lived on that narrow band of land with everyone else.

One Sunday afternoon, Lindsay, my daughter, and I were suffering from a little case of "Cabin Fever". We considered a trip to Canada or San Francisco but since she had to be in school at 7:30 Monday morning we decided against it. Florida is flat. The highest points are the overpasses for the turnpike. You have to drive north about four hours before the topography changes significantly. So we decided to explore the farmlands to the west.

Canals, vast fields of crops varying according to the season from Green Peppers and Tomatoes to Strawberries and farther west Sugar Cane. In the area where we lived, West Palm Beach, there wasn't a lot of citrus. There were ornamental orange, grapefruit and lemon trees but not much in the way of commercial production. That is not to say there was none. A couple of places existed as tourist destinations and over sized fruit markets. They produced a pretty substantial crop. The fruit was transported by large trucks driven by daredevils and hot rodders. It was not a pleasant thing to be approached by a speeding load of fresh oranges or grapefruit. Sometimes the overloaded trucks, driven by drivers that might have been too, would lose a part of their load which would spill along the road.

I do not like waste. It just goes against my grain. When I see perfectly good fruit lying on the side of the road I just naturally feel I should take advantage of the offering. Lindsay thought so too. So when we came across an extraordinary cache of fresh Ruby Red Grapefruit we stopped and commenced to transfer it from the roadside to the interior of my somewhat aged Cadillac. Now, you wouldn't think from looking at a grapefruit that a few of them would take up much space. But as we gathered and transferred them, well, we filled the car and then the trunk. Sadly, we were disappointed to leave so many on the side of the road but we had done all we could.

There was barely enough room for Lindsay and I after we loaded up. We looked at each other with rather blank expressions and then started laughing over what we had done. When we finally got the bounty into the house we had to consider what we might do with them. I think we gave some away. We juiced a lot of them and froze the juice. We ate some of them. But we did not waste a single grapefruit. Not one.

A little footnote about the "Groves" near West Palm Beach. They are gone. I was there in February for a visit and intended to visit Knollwood Groves. It had been owned by the co stars of the Amos and Andy radio program. We loved going there was so much to see. They offered a little tour of the groves on a wagon pulled by a tractor right through the middle of the orange trees. When we returned we could see the juicing being done and then we went to the little store. There was a bakery there and they made the most delicious apple pie. It was sliced and kept whole, slid to one side and exposed the layers of the apple.

There were tables and chairs under a huge Banyan tree and it felt cool in it's shade. It's gone and so is the apple pie and a lot of other things. Like the words from a Beatles song, "Life is what happens while you are making other plans."

©Herb Ratliff, August 2, 2012, All Rights Reserved

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