It’s a hot Sunday afternoon. I am driving through peach country. Mind you, it’s not big peach country like down around Crawford County, Georgia or over around Chilton County, AL. This is more like across-the-creek-and-through-the-woods peach country. It takes me a out 30 minutes to get there and not hours.

One of my annual rituals is the search for the perfect peach.

The perfect peach cannot be found on a grocery store shelf.
It cannot be found all by itself.
Perfection is born at the bud on a stem.
Pulled by hand and eaten so fast the juice runs down your chin, and down the back of your hand, runs down your forearm, and drips off your elbow, and onto the toe of your shoe.

June is the time I start getting ready for peaches. I know that fake peaches show up in the stores earlier, but really? Come on!

For example, I was in a roadside market in another unnamed county recently. For fear my story might cause irreparable heartache if it should circulate into the wrong hands, I will not name said county north of where I live.

My mama always said, “If you don’t have something good to say, don’t say anything that anyone could take per insonal.”

Anyway. The market sign said, “We Have Peaches.” I was skeptical. This is not my first rodeo. Yea, it’s June, but just barely.

The real giveaway was the handwritten sign stuck in amongst the little peach baskets on the display under the tin roof shed. I reckon folks think that old wooden, tin roofed sheds make them look like real peach farmers. But that sign. .

It said, “Please Do NOT Touch the Peaches.”

First of all, anybody with any sense knows that almost no fruit or vegetable can be bought without first a proper handling. If I’m looking at a pile of cantaloupe, I’m gonna touch them all before I buy one. So, to tell me I can’t touch is like telling me to move on.

But I was desperate for a peach. The color was so nice. The little baskets were calling my name. I knew better. I tried to talk myself out of it. But I was weak and gave in to temptation.

I paid six bucks for peach-shaped-colored rocks. Ugh!

My search for the perfect peach goes back to the late 1960s. June would roll around and my mama would send me down the road to get peaches.

“Take this grocery sack and go down to the Weems. Get some good peaches and I’ll make a cobbler tonight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I called and they’ve got plenty of ripe ones.”

“Yes ma’am.”

I’m eleven years old. My mode of transportation is my Western Auto Spider bike. Long banana seat. High-rise chrome handlebars. I stuff a folded brown-paper sack in the waist of my shorts and head out across the yard for the road. It was nearly a perfect mile to the Weems’ place.

“And don’t eat them all before you get home.”

I shouted “yes ma’am” over my shoulder as I stood hard on the pedals and gained speed.

My approach to picking peaches is like my approach to picking blackberries. Which is kind of like the way I pick strawberries. Which is kind of like the way I pick blueberries.

Pick one, eat two.

This is easier done with small berries. Peaches are more filling. But before too long I’d be headed home, a full sack of peaches balanced on one knee moving up and down as I pedalled. One arm around the sack. One hand on the handlebars. Uphill was the toughest.

I can still see Mama sitting in the yard chair out under the shade of the Mulberry trees. Newspaper spread out on a makeshift table. A towel in her lap with a bowl of peaches on top. Her knife working its magic as she peels and slices.

“Come over here,” she’d say. “Get a bite of this one.”

And she’d lift a slice of heaven to my lips on the blade of her knife. I’d end up with peach juice running down my little boney chest and into my shorts.

This is what comes over me every June. This is why I’m out here driving through the country roads of the Flint River basin on a Sunday afternoon hot enough to bake biscuits on my dashboard. Marion suggested we meet up after church. She’d drive down from Newnan. I’d drive up from Columbus.

First stop was at a ‘you pick’ farm with a note that said, “We’re not picking today.” They had peach rocks in baskets, and we moved on shaking our heads.

Next stop, a fruit stand in town. Massive display of fruit. A sign that said, “Boiled Peanuts.” They even had a guess-my-weight watermelon on the counter. I’m telling you. That thing had to weigh forty-five pounds. But I was looking for peaches among more rocks. Nothing here I’d feed a pig.

BTW. The boiled peanuts were pure perfection.

The thing is, a peach won’t ripen to perfection after it’s picked. That’s my opinion. You can pick a tomato a little early and sit it up on the windowsill, and it’ll ripen on out. A peach won’t do that. Now, it’ll get softer, but that’s not the same as ripening.

So, we headed east across the Flint and made our way to see the folks at Gregg Farms. And I’m telling you, this was the place for peach perfection.

First, we parked in the shade next to the port-a-potty. A gazillion cars all around. I saw one from Henry County, my stomping grounds. We walked up the hill toward the tent at the edge of the orchard.

A nice young man welcomed us and handed us two galvanized buckets. He pointed.

“Y’all head up toward that large oak on the far corner. The rows we’re picking are marked with pink flagging tape. Start up the hill and pick on the way back here. It’ll be easier to carry your buckets.”

I listened closely to the instructions. Nothing was said, and I mean absolutely not a word was said about NOT eating while picking. I took this as a sign from the Lord that we had found the right place.

Mercy, did we!

“Round your buckets up. We don’t care,” they said.

We finished up with two old-fashioned brown paper grocery sacks full of peaches running over. Which is kind of what made me think of my mama. Which is kind of what made this a perfect peach kind of day.

How can you not love June? This is the month of purely sweetened and ripened fruit that comes with just a little bit of picking effort. We got our strawberries in Florida back in the spring, which is like cheating. I haven’t picked blackberries yet. I did pick over two gallons of blueberries on Saturday evening.

And now peaches. We put up six quarts that night. Plus, we held on to a few for regular eating.

Whatever stains are on the front of my shirt, I claim to have no knowledge of how they got there.