Seventy five by one hundred, detached white brick colonial house in Queens. That was what the New York Times ad said. Every other house we looked at was on a forty by one hundred. We bought the house. The backyard was what sold us. In early April, the magnolia tree was in full bloom filling the air with a sweet perfume. Best of all was the white blossoming tree. This provided patio shade and the yet unknown bounty of plump red sour cherries. June would unlock that hidden secret. Something for nothing. Fruit that did not come from Key Food. Remembering my childhood years on the Catskills farm where the huckleberries were our something for nothing and the apples in the apple orchard were our something for nothing.
Year after year the sour cherry tree yielded an amazing crop of dark red fruit. This reliable gift was enough to share with friends and neighbors. We could hand pick the lowest branches. A ladder helped us reach the next level. Of course, no one except the birds could reach the highest, the best, the choicest. The hot sun fermented those way up so the birds, sharing our treasure appeared to get drunk on the red cherry wine. We were able to plant three cherry tree suckers on the side of the house. They did become miniature trees, blossom and bear fruit but we could never beat the birds in rescuing the ripened cherries.
After picking and washing the cherries, I combined then with cooked peeled peaches and went about canning them in mason jars. Jar after jar was boiled, cooled and stored for a delicious fruit compote winter treat.
Just as I have aged, so has my tree. Each year yielded less and less harvest as we continued to remove the dead branches. Then there were no more branches to offer shade and no more branches to offer fruit; only a stump remained. We used this to attach a clothes line. This spring, we had no more white blossoms to dance in the spring breeze, only damp clothes on the line blowing in the wind.
Ethyl Haber
April 2021
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