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| Blackberries In the Wild The best part about growing up in Oregon was the summer fruit. In our neighborhood I had free reign to plunder neighbors plum trees, cherry trees, and the blackberry bushes that grew like feral cats in the empty lot across the street. The blackberries were considered such a nuisance that our adoptive father Harley gave my oldest brother, Matthew a machete so he could chop down the thorny bushes wherever they took hold. This was, of course, back in the 1970's when it wasn't considered odd to give a 12 year-old boy an oversized butcher knife, along with a quick lesson on how to keep it deadly sharp.  Luckily, Matthew was a tender-hearted, sensitive boy who used his machete only for good, never for evil. He chopped paths through the center of the tangled blackberry bushes that grew on the fence surrounding the 5 acre empty lot. He braved the thorny blackberry vines that could take off a layer of skin within seconds. He chopped out hidden forts, secret passages and small holes of cleared dirt that were perfect for spending the afternoon away from the troublesome adults in our lives. Having a working machete at our disposal made all kinds of childhood life improvements that were otherwise unimaginable. Besides the fact I and my adoptive siblings used the bounties of Oregon fruit season to combat the regular punishment of not being worthy enough to eat food at home, blackberries also were integral to my accomplishing my very first life goal. I had developed many unspoken goals in my childhood, like to not be beaten with a stick; eat regularly even when food wasn't given; avoid the adults I lived with; and to stay out of trouble at school. I hadn't yet attempted a serious, measurable goal all on my own. At 8 years old, it was hard to find a goal that didn't smell like a grow-ups attempt to make me work. One night, after a hard day of playing in the blackberry forts, I noticed my denim jean shorts were stained with blackberry juice. As I changed into my pajamas for bed, I saw the areas caked with fruit juice and dirt were stiffer than the rest of my shorts. The thought came to me that it would be neat to see if I could wear my shorts every day, to the point that they could stand up in the corner of my room all by themselves. Yes! This was a goal worth trying for.
My experiment with nature, science and cotton blue jean fabric commenced the next morning. No one said anything about my dirty shorts while I hurried through my required morning chores. When I arrived back home in the evening at supper time, the adults were busy watching evening tv. Lunch was always eaten away from home, straight off whatever nearby plants God provided, to lessen the chances of being caught up in doing extra housework for our adoptive mother, Virginia. Day by day, I methodically tested plum, cherry, blackberry, and peach juice smeared on my shorts to see which created the stiffest possible fabric. It appeared to my novice eye that blackberries won the contest hands down. Layered with regularly applied fine dust and grit, my shorts became a hardened cast that was actually difficult to sit down in.
After a week of hard work, I proudly showed off my efforts to my siblings. Mission accomplished! The shorts stood, all by themselves, without any support from the walls. They were completely covered with black juice, brown dirt and signified the first time in my life I set out to accomplish a goal and did it. My shorts didn't last after that night. One of my siblings told Virginia about my so-dirty-they-could-stand-by-themselves shorts and she took them, leaving me only with a lecture about ruining perfectly good clothes ringing in my ears. I didn't care. Blackberries taste great and are wonderful in pies, smashed into jam, and they let a girl know that accomplishing a goal all by herself is possible. |
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| Because I am awesome mom, when my kids had the opportunity to get muddy, I helped them do it. Yay me! |
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