July 4th celebrations are special with the right kind of watermelon

By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

At age seven, my time had finally come. The years of waiting and anticipating were over. The day of passage from just being a little brother to well, someone important - was now at hand. My Dad had chosen me to pick out the Fourth of July Watermelon.

I knew just were to go to find the biggest and best melon the only place in Atlanta to go was the Atlanta Farmers' Market. After church on Sundays, Dad always picked the garden. What he had extra he would trade at the Farmers' Market for what he couldn't grow. Watermelon he couldn't grow. After the noon meal one Sunday, we all piled into the green, wood-paneled station wagon and headed to the market.

My years of waiting had not gone in vain; I had taken notes. You see, there is indeed an art to picking the correct melon.

First, you must know which melon to pick. I knew that there were two kinds of watermelons: long two-toned striped ones and dark-green, heavy, round ones with ruby-red centers. Two-toned melons were always red on the inside, but very hard to cut correctly.

If you cut them crossways, you would end up with a circle for a slice and have to use a plate. I didn't like using a plate. Cut them lengthways and the slice you got was too long and you had to share. I didn't like sharing. No. The only melon for me on this Fourth of July would be a dark-green, heavy, round one with a ruby-red center.

At the Farmers' Market, Dad traded squash, okra, and cucumbers. He then turned and said, "This year we're gonna have family over, so pick out two good ones, Rick." I walked past the stacks of long two-toned striped ones and searched through the pile of dark-green, heavy, round ones until I found the perfect melons. They were the right size bigger than a pumpkin. They were the right weight - I couldn't pick them up. The only thing left to do was the thump test.

Last year Twin Brother Mark picked out the melon, thumping it using his forefinger and thumb. When thumped, a ripe melon will sound a deep reverberation throughout. Kinda like the sound you'll get when thumping your tummy after eating too much Thanksgiving dinner.

Twin Brother Mark picked out a dark-green, heavy, round melon but made a horrible mistake. The mistake was so bad that it ruined the holiday for us kids a mistake that no one knew had been made until Dad cut into the melon at lunch time on the Fourth of July. Unknowingly, Twin Brother Mark picked a new breed of melon - a SEEDLESS.

The small thin seeds from the seedless could not be spit. That was the first and only time we didn't have a seed-spitting contest on the Fourth of July. After the thump test, I asked the attendant if the melons had good spitting seeds. She looked at me with a smile and said, "Sure do. You can spit those seeds twenty feet." And with that wonderful news, I rolled the melons to Dad, and he loaded them into the green, wood-paneled station wagon and we headed home.

Dad placed the melons in the refrigerator for three days. At lunch time on July 4th, he carried them to the picnic table and cut them. Each slice of watermelon was ruby-red and full of juice. Big Brother James, Older Brother Richard, Twin Brother Mark and I grabbed our slices, kitchen knife, and salt shaker and sat on the cross tie wall in the backyard.

The only way to eat watermelon is to use a kitchen knife to pick out the seeds, salt it, slice it, stab it, and then eat it. And if the sticky sweet juice isn't running down the front of your neck, y'ain't doing it right. This is how we got into trouble eating watermelon and spitting seeds.

Every year we had a seed spitting contest, and every year Older Brother Richard won. His record of 18 feet still stands today. When The Sister came over and sat down, Big Brother James invented a new contest: how many seeds can you land in The Sister's long, curly red hair without her noticing? I still hold that record at 10. When Dad found out, he sent me down to the swamp to pick out a switch.

This Fourth of July, we'll have the whole family over once again for the holiday. Three days prior, I'll take The Boy to the Atlanta Farmers' Market and trade some upside down tomatoes for one dark-green, heavy, round watermelon with a ruby-red center. Twin Brother Mark thinks this is the year he'll break Older Brother Richard's record of spitting a seed 18 feet. I think this is the year I'll break my record of landing 10 seeds in The Sister's hair without her noticing. Glad we no longer live near a swamp!

Happy Fourth.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.]

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