One of my favorite desserts is cherry pie. For a large portion of my childhood, my mother baked two cherry pies each Saturday. They were amazing! Just the right mixture of sugar and sour cherries with a small splash of vanilla extract nestled between a perfectly flaky pie-crust. The smell would make my head spin in anticipation of the best treat possible.
Each summer we would travel about an hour north to near Lake Erie to pick cherries. We spent the day in the trees picking. And then after coming home, would spend the evening and well into the night pitting the cherries and preparing them for freezing. We usually picked enough for 150 pies. Each of my siblings (there were five of us), my mother, and my grandmother (who at the time was in her mid-sixties) would pick from early morning to mid-afternoon.
One particular time while picking, I was in a tree carrying on a conversation with my grandmother who was in another tree nearby. Our conversation went all over the place like they usually did…anything to make the day go faster and distract from the work. As I glanced over in the middle of talking, I watched in horror as my grandmother, who had climbed off her tall ladder and ventured higher into the branches of a tree, began to fall. As usual, she was wearing a dress that went slightly below her knees. At the sight of her falling I stopped talking while my eyes grew wide. I watched as she glided down the branches of the tree, her back-side brushing hard against each new row of branches. As she descended to the ground, she landed on her fee…and said “Oh!…that was something…” Then acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, climbed back up into the tree and continued talking and picking.
Todd Rivetti 