The Produce Place<\/a>, Eric advised on the good, the unusual, and the possibly acceptable with candor that became a bedrock of my culinary life.\u00a0 How devotedly do we love the purveyor who doesn\u2019t just advise what to select, but what to avoid? With a slight cock of the head, a slight, twinkle-eyed grimace, the kindly warning wave of the hand, he might guide me away.\u00a0 So many years of listening to my questions patiently, knowing what I was after, yielded honesty of the most treasured sort.\u00a0 \u201cUmmmm, nah, those might be better with shipments in the next couple of weeks,\u201d he might observe. \u201cI\u2019m not sure these we have today are as sweet yet as you might like.\u201d<\/p>\nSuddenly, today, his 25 years as a valued partner of the edible, an entire quarter century of Saturdays when he smiled that, \u201cHey, girl,\u201d came to an end.\u00a0Perusing the red-gold hues of the miniature heirloom tomatoes, my hand extended to snare a carton, I heard him tell another customer that today was his last day at the market.\u00a0 He carried his small grandson through the aisles, dispensing goodbye hugs to regulars like me.\u00a0 But, but\u2026where are you going, I stammered, unable to conceive that some cardboard-peach-purveying-grocery-behemoth had stolen him out from under us.\u00a0 I should have known better.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife and I are going to be house parents at a home for disadvantaged boys in Alabama,\u201d he explained, probably for the hundredth time of the morning, before 10 a.m.\u00a0 \u201cWe are so excited. But leaving is hard.\u00a0 We both loved our jobs, but we\u2019ve been married 25 years, and everyday we\u2019d get up in the morning and go separate directions for nine or 10 hours.\u00a0 As much as anything, we are excited about working together.\u201d\u00a0 Even in my instantly sharp sting of loss, this answer does not surprise me. Lucky boys, lucky woman, I think. \u00a0And lucky us customers, to have received the gift of this man\u2019s generous kindness, served up alongside bins of local sweet corn, homegrown snap beans, crowder peas, and rosy clingstone peaches.<\/p>\n
Thank you for all your help all these years, I mumbled inadequately, as he encircled my shoulders with his strong left arm.\u00a0 \u201cNo, thank you for supporting us all this time,\u201d he answered, hugging firmly.<\/p>\n
Unlike another woman in the fruit aisle, I held back tears until I got to the car. There they leaked insistently and ran unabated down my cheeks and neck as I rolled to the next stop on the routine weekend errands. I kept my sunglasses on as I went inside, mopping my cheeks with the heel of a hand.<\/p>\n
The store will go on without me, he had consoled, before I left. You know the other guys here, they\u2019ll be around.\u00a0 He is right, almost certainly. \u00a0The owner has expertly evolved in his niche as the years have passed, capitalizing on rising demand for locally grown and organic fruits and vegetables, fresh meat and dairy, and superior prepared foods.\u00a0 Eric will be gone, but I will be back, relying not just on the one person, but the neighborhood institution and what it represents.<\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019ve reached the age where so many long-time relationships fall away for one reason or the other, and the tally adds up. But tomorrow when I slice into the ruby-red watermelon for my visiting nephew and his family, I know I will think of Eric, surprised still by the pain of loss.\u00a0 The dripping fruit, loved like the relentless sun and steamy breezes of summer, will remind me again of the surprisingly rich importance of the relationships of everyday life. Even those that may seem narrow in scope may demonstrate a trust and connection more valued than we realize, leaving us to wish we appreciated them more before they were gone.<\/p>\n
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It feels like a tragedy, oddly enriched by the flavors of summer:\u00a0 The man who picks out my cantaloupes is leaving me. Oh, no, it\u2019s nothing like that.\u00a0 Were I in a life partnership with that most appealing of all men\u2014he who cooks\u2014such abandonment would spark a different kind of grief. \u00a0Ours is a relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[112,109,110,111],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mid-life-adventures","tag-fresh-summer-fruit","tag-relationships","tag-summer-treasures","tag-visiting-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmachronicles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}