My first September in the Sandhills, a friend brought me a late season peach. I gave it a wary look. It was one of the ugliest peaches I’d ever seen — misshapen with a deep purple mottle, perhaps just past its prime.
But who was I to turn my nose up at a local delicacy? I took it home to share with my husband.
If you can’t judge a book by its cover, then you can’t judge a peach by its skin. All of summer’s goodness seemed to have been concentrated in that weird looking little fruit. “Succulent” is the only word that comes to mind to describe the flavor.
After tasting it, I regretted sharing it with hubs.
I was told it was a Fairtime peach, so named because the variety comes in late, around fair time. But it could have been another variety, perhaps an Indian free. But I’ll leave the nitty gritty to the pomologists. All I know is it was delicious.
We went to the fair every year. Other than a mandatory visit to see my mother’s blue ribbon flower arrangements on exhibit, the fair was strictly a father-daughter activity. We would arrive in the late afternoon, with plenty of time to grab a turkey leg, watch the sun go down and the ferris wheel lights turn on.
Before I could seek my thrills on the pirate ship ride and the tilt-a-whirl, dad made sure to take his citified daughter through all the farm exhibits. The smell of manure and straw from the animals mixed fragrantly with fry oil from the food vendors and wafted over the crowd.
Dear old dad would show me the heaviest pumpkin, the curliest gourd, the fattest cow, the smilingest pig, the fluffiest bunny and the smartest chicken.
The chickens would become my intellectual foes. One year dad got a gleam in his eye that should have tipped me off that he was up to something. “Look, Mag, these chickens play Tic-Tac-Toe. I bet you can beat ‘em.”
Well, eight-year-old me got straight A’s. You’d better believe a chicken was no match for me. He put a quarter in the arcade machine housing a bored looking hen. I was “X’s” and she was “O’s.”
Each of my carefully calculated moves was countered by the feathered genius. It became clear that the chicken was going to win. I could not comprehend my downfall.
Clearly my public school education needed some sharpening. But the worst part — the worst part — was having to turn around and face my father. He had tears running down his face, red from the force of holding back his laughter.
“Mag! You let that chicken BEAT you?”
He let me stew in my humility for a good while, at least all the way through the haunted fun house before buying me an elephant ear, putting an arm around my shoulder and spilling the chicken’s tricks.
No one said fair time would be fair — merely good.
Whether it is ugly, delicious peaches or chickens skilled game theory, there is much to marvel at this time of year.
