Summer Watermelons

Summer Watermelons: Enjoyed with Mouths, Hands, or Hammers

I have always thought of watermelon as the official food of summer. Other summer treats are great, of course. Ice cream is a good contender, but you can get it by the gallon any time of year. Watermelon is more specific to the summer season, which puts it in the lead. When I was about five, I buried seeds in my grandfather’s backyard. I thought that growing my own favorite food would be the best thing in the world. There were three melons growing when I checked the next time they were in season. The grownups gave me all the credit for the harvest, but I have a suspicion that they were the ones who planted and nurtured the melons we enjoyed that summer.

Watermelon is best eaten outside, which is another factor that makes it the perfect summer food. While you can certainly eat it carefully inside without making too much of a mess, there’s nothing like “throwing caution to the wind” and burying your face in a huge slab of melon while enjoying a beautiful day outdoors. Even the most dignified individuals tend to regress into a childlike state when it’s watermelon time. It’s a victimless crime to let the juices fly and spit the seeds wherever, perhaps on an unsuspecting friend to get a laugh. It’s liberating, especially for those of us who have to pretend to be civilized at work most of the time. There aren’t many foods that are routinely devoured with our hands, outdoors. That’s a summertime experience that’s all the more precious because we have to wait for it.

One time I took a huge, beautiful watermelon on a camping trip. I realized on the third day, when it was good and ripe, that I hadn’t brought a proper knife to cut it up. This led to some creative thinking and a bit of silliness as I decided to try to chop it in half with my hand. I really didn’t think it would work, but we were outside at a picnic table where a botched attempt could cause little harm. Worst case scenario, I would make another mess. It must have been beginner’s luck because I wacked it cleanly in two, with just a bit of the skin remaining intact on the bottom – easily ripped apart. I claimed my half as though I were a caveman who had taken down a wooly mammoth. I don’t know what my friends did with their half because I was too busy gorging. My only regret was that we didn’t get my lucky strike on video. I declined the offer to film it because I thought I might embarrass myself and didn’t want to risk having someone make my blunder public.

The most delight that I have ever witnessed involving a watermelon didn’t come from eating it. That’s sacrilege in my book, but I had to appreciate the joy on my friend’s face. We were at a medieval camping event where I was selling walking sticks and other things that I made from wood. It was Christopher’s birthday, so we had a cake and other treats for him. The watermelon I brought was for me, and I remembered my big knife that time (I figured the chopping of a melon in half with my hand was a one-time thing).

We sat chatting and Christopher’s eyes were roaming more than usual. I noticed that he continually looked at three different points in my large marquis tent: me, my watermelon, and the huge wooden war hammer that I had made to sell at the event. He made eye contact briefly every few seconds before turning his gaze back to either the watermelon or the war hammer, and then between those two. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. Eventually I blurted out, “Don’t even think about it! I brought that watermelon to eat, not to get destroyed for your amusement!” He claimed that he had “Never wanted anything more in his life” than to smash that particular watermelon with that particular hammer. It was awfully dramatic. After playing the birthday card and swearing he would replace it before the trip was over, I relented, handed him the watermelon, then the hammer, and went to help gather the crowd of witnesses that I was sure he would want to sing “Happy Birthday” to lead up to his Gallagher routine. The smashing of that melon was spectacular, I must admit. We spent ten minutes positioning it for what we believed would be the maximum effect. After the birthday song there was chanting, of course, leading to a crescendo and culminating in the mightiest swing of a large wooden mallet that I have ever seen. It was more glorious than my knife hand chop, more satisfying than the time I drank an entire juiced watermelon in one sitting. If his grin were any wider, it would have met itself around the backside of his head.

It was a terrible waste of good food, but one more example of a watermelon bringing summertime happiness, be it through mouths, hands, or hammers.