The early October morning was warm; the afternoon was going to be hot. On the left of the produce stand piles of pumpkins, gourds, corn stalks and hay bales were somewhat artfully arranged in a semi-circle stretching across the parking lot. The bins were stocked full of peas, beans, squash, corn, and other fresh vegetables. People wandered to-and-fro, poking, picking, sacking, and asking questions of the woman in the center behind a register. When I reached the stand, my eye caught a basket of round, ruby-red, fuzzy fruit.
“Hey, Brenda!” I called out. “Where’d you get these late peaches?”
“Idaho!” She said. I couldn’t help staring.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she said. “I asked Rupert if he had any Carolina peaches left and he said, no, but I have some from Idaho, and I said I didn’t think they even knew what a peach is in Idaho and he just said take or leave, so I bought them because I wanted some peaches, and they’re better than nothing.”
“How are they?” I asked.
“Well, they’re peaches,” she said. “They ain’t the best I’ve had by far, but they’re probably not the worst. They’re peaches, take or leave.”
So I bought a half a dozen Idaho peaches, more for the sake of novelty than for any other reason. And they’re not the best, by any means, but firm and sweet nonetheless, with a deep yellow flesh around a blood-red center.
As I was checking out, Brenda pointed at a table of rattlesnake watermelons and said, “You’ll never guess where those are from”
“So tell me,” I said.
She rang up my total and said, “Nebraska.”
