The Watermelon

Just a little prank that I did when I was young.

The Watermelon

Written by T. L. O’Neal

 

    Growing up as teenager in the seventies was a pretty good time. We didn’t have all this sort of stuff that the kids of today have to contend with. Of course the parents still had their worries back then but not like the ones they have now.  Then they worried about the longhair, rock and roll, cigarettes, drinking, and smoking pot on occasion, but not all the other things that they have to in this day and time. 

 

   Anyway, in the summer there’s nothing better than a fresh, juicy watermelon right out of the field. Better yet, when you got it for free if you know what I mean. They always tasted sweeter when you got them that way.

 

    On this one particular day, my friend Robert and I were out exploring through some woods in an area that we didn’t frequent very much, and as we were going through it we saw a light shining up ahead through the trees. We noticed as we went on that it was a clearing up ahead and we noticed that it had a watermelon patch out there in the field. Now these weren’t just any kind of melons either; they were those large Carolina melons, the big, long, striped kind that was the size of a small hog. That little field was lit up with the summer sun like a little oasis in the dark of the woods. It being a hot, muggy, summer day, those watermelons looked mighty tasty to two hot, thirsty and hungry teenagers. We didn’t know who’s patch it was but at the time it really didn’t matter because we were both famished.

 

   Stealing watermelons isn’t anything new; kids have been doing it for as long as farmers have been planting them. I imagine it’s been going on for hundreds of years or maybe even thousands. It’s a given that some will be taken and the farmers know this, it’s as sure as knowing that the sun will come up every morning. I think they plant some extra of them to offset those that they know that will get took. It’s a part of the natural food chain of life I do believe. I remember one time while I was fishing next to a melon patch when all of a sudden this truck pulled up with six or seven people in it. They jumped out and started loading that truck up as hard as they could go, how those people were going to eat all of them is beyond me. But I just stood there in pure amazement and if you ask me that was pure overkill. I don’t see anything wrong with one or two, but a truckload, that’s a bit too much.

 

    Anyhow I’m getting off course a bit. So anyway, without us saying anything, it was like each of us was reading the other one’s mind; we ran into that patch and started thumping melons as hard as we could go to find a good and ripe one. As we were thumping along on those melons, we heard the all so familiar hollow sound that we were listening for. Once this was accomplished, we busted that melon wide open on the ground and went straight for the heart of it. The heart of a watermelon is always the sweetest and has the most juice, and the fact that there aren’t any seeds in that part of it is an added bonus. I surely believe that it was the sweetest watermelon that I ever did eat too. With the juice running down our faces and a look of contentment and satisfaction too, we gorged ourselves for a long spell. Then we went looking for another and did the same to that one too.

 

    With our bellies full, and our hunger and thirst finally quenched, we sat in the shade of a tree and rested for a while. We laughed and talked about our great success and good fortune on finding this little field of heaven. After that we decided to go and Robert mentioned that it would be nice to take his mother one of these nice, juicy watermelons too. I had known Francis for a longtime and liked her just fine, and I also knew that she was always a good sport. I was in agreement with this but had an idea for a little practical joke to play on her at the same time. I told Robert about it but he wasn’t so sure if we should do it. He always liked a good joke too but to pull one on his mother was a little different, so I brought him around to my way of thinking after a while and he was all for it then.

 

   With me being a creative sort and a bit of a practical joker too, I came up with this plan. We found the biggest watermelon that we could find and I set to work on it. I took out my pocketknife, which I always had with me by the way, and cut the center of the melon down along the stripes to conceal the cuts. We then removed a plug out of it and removed all the insides out of that watermelon. When it was all scooped out, we replaced the insides with whatever we could find; dirt, rocks, oak leaves and twigs. We were getting great enjoyment out of this little arts and crafts project and laughing the whole time as we went along doing it. When we were finally finished, we gently replaced the plug and cleaned it up and it was ready for delivery.

 

   We took turns lugging that heavy dirt and rock filled melon all the way back to Robert’s house. Believe it or not, a watermelon full of dirt is a heck of a lot heavier than a regular one.

 

     When we finally did make it back to Robert’s house, we presented it to his mother with all the fanfare that we could muster without cracking up too much. The way that she knew us, I could see that she was a little suspicious over such a good deed but accepted it graciously anyways. We asked her if she wanted to go ahead and cut it because we wanted to enjoy her reaction to the big surprise. But to our horror and disappointment she cleaned out a spot in the refrigerator to make room for that huge dirt and rock filled fruit. Seems that she always liked to have her melon chilled before cutting and eating it. It sure would have been nice if Robert would have let me in on this bit of information, but I guess it slipped his mind. Anyhow, now this was a dilemma for me, one because I had to go home and wasn’t going to be there to see the unveiling so to speak. And two, after all that trouble she was going through with this booby-trapped melon, she was going to be surely mad as fire with us. Especially her knowing that I was probably the instigator in this little prank, because I usually always was. So I went home, worrying the whole way about what kind of hell I was going to catch for this one, from her and then Mama after she tells her about it.

 

     After a day or so without hearing anything, I decided to go back and take my medicine like a man. After being there a while and nothing was being said about it either way, I just had to bring it up; the suspense was killing me. I just had to know one way or the other, do or die you know. 

 

“Francis,” I said, “Did you cut that watermelon yet?” in a sheepish way.

 

“Why yes I did as a matter of fact, and you know what? It was the damnest thing, that watermelon was all full of dirt, oak leaves, and rocks. Now how do you think that happened?” Francis said with a little smirk.

 

   I wasn’t sure what to say or do then; I knew I was busted and for good. There wasn’t anyway out of it now. She then proceeded to tell how she waited till that watermelon was good and chilled and she had her heart set on eating some of that sweet, juicy watermelon. Then she put it on the table, got out her good, kitchen knife and started to cut that huge melon. It didn’t cut the best in the world for some reason or other but she kept at it. When she finally did get it opened up, all that dirt, rocks, oak leaves, and twigs fell out all over what was her once clean table. She was a little befuddled to start with but it wasn’t long before she knew that we had tampered with it.

 

    She started laughing and said that she wasn’t mad, but we did owe her a good one without all the extras. She was a good sport about it and always was with the stupid things that we always did. We got her a good one this time, courtesy of us, but we never did tell her where we got the next one from either. 

 

 

Reviews

[C.J. Klein]

And the moral of the story:

A watermelon full of dirt is a heck of a lot heavier than a regular one."


You are amazing. I seriously think you should consider pooling these wonderful stories together and publishing them as a collection. What a treasure they would be for years to come - as you immortalize certain elements of your youth. I realize some of your stories are fiction, but they could be a category all of their own. (But the autobiographical ones have been especially entertaining to me.) You were quite the prankster, Mr. O'Neal. Makes me think of a few stories of my own, as I was always up to no good growing up, and dragging my little sister into the midst of it seemed to be my goal in life.

Again, I love the humor and whimsical air to your words. They bring me to another era, entirely.

Nicely done.

[Michael Carr]

I remember eating watermelon, loved it.
nice little piece of the past. funny and heartwarming.

[Antony]

Hey T, you were a little devil. I laughed real good at this one. Smiles all over my face. Thanks for this. It made my day.
Tony

[David P. Eckert]

Another fine vignette. This time the fear proved unfounded, but what a prankster your narrators always are, and then he worries at the consequences. Lots of fun.

[Everyday Is Just Anothe..]

Haha, this was nice, cute, and funny. It sounded like fun, wish I had been there!

[Conspiration Libre D'es..]

I loved the sweetness and innocence of this. Really this story couldn't have happened today times and I think the world is a much more sadder place because of that. Very enjoyable.

[Moonlight]

I said it 'afore and I'll say it ag' in...Damn you were a bad a*s T.L.!I don't know how you made it through life hun!Yer butt must be tough as raw hide b'now!Moonlight used her rusty accent and then laughed her a*s off here!

[Kevin Connolly]

That's funny stuff, Terry. You can't beat real-life memories when it comes to writing prose. But the poor woman... thnk God you made amends and stole a non-mud-filled watermelon for her. I'm sure He'll forgive the theft for the good deed performed (when I was a child I stole anything that wasn't nailed down).

[Michael Anyanwu]

As usual, you never fail to bring a smile to my face with your autobigraphical tales that hearken back to what was obviously a much more innocent time devoid of some of the horrors that youngsters have to put up with now.

Your tale definitely took me back to positive memories of my tumultous but equally fun-filled younger years.

Thanks so much for the privelege

[akarusty]

I like the last line of it, gives it a nice cheery end that reflects the beginning. I don't know whether this is actually a true story or not (although you make out in your description that it is), the way it is narrated as you were there in the story is really good. Perhaps you could also pull this sort of style off with a fictional story, with a character as a narrator, to make people think the story is actually more real than fiction. Stories like that I find are much more memorable than others. Good stuff.

[Amy Widmer]

lmao! I remember getting those "free" melons or any other fruit that just happened to appear magically in my hands.