Blueberry blues

I'm tired of buying frozen blueberries, and though I know fresh blueberry season is right around the corner, I'm impatient for inexpensive, fresh blueberries to arrive at a store near me. Right now, I could buy a teeny container of fresh blueberries for $10. I think I'll wait. In the meantime, this longing for blueberries takes me back to a time when I was a child, more "worst of times" than "best of times" in my memory bank.

When I was growing up, one of my next-door neighbors had a line of blueberry bushes that grew along his driveway, separating our yard from his, and each year, I greatly anticipated the time when the vines would fill with ripe berries. I'd go over, ring the doorbell and ask permission to pick some of the berries for myself and my family. I'd gleefully fill up a bowl with them.

One year, however, when I rang the doorbell, the answer was, "No, not yet. I want to make a blueberry pie for my husband first. Then you can come over and pick some." I walked away from the door, feeling sad that my plans for the afternoon had just been thwarted.

Then, I don't know what possessed me. There was no snake poking its head out from the bushes calling me over, but there might as well have been.

A neighborhood friend, several years older than I, was waiting on my deck to hear the answer. In the (not so very) long walk from my neighbor's front door to my back deck, something took hold of me. "She said we could pick some." So off we went, bowls in hand.

We had a great time picking blueberries that afternoon, and I'm sure plenty made their way into our mouths rather than the bowls. I really don't know why I didn't think I'd get caught. I'm pretty sure consequences didn't even cross my mind.