For Thursday, July 22, 1999 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 660 words

Cherry charity

My daughter, Kristi, and her husband, Chad, have a Bing cherry tree in the backyard of their new house in Rancho Cordova. It's 20-feet high and thick with sweet, black cherries. I don't know what other cherry-tree owners do, probably pick what they need and leave the rest to drop off. But not our kids, at least not during their first harvest. They were determined to pick every last cherry.

They have two dogs who eat the fallen cherries, pits and all. Worried for their dogs' health, they decided to strip the tree of fruit. Ha. They called us and invited us to bring the grandparents, Nana and Papa, and come up for a cherry picking Sunday. We did.

When we arrived, they showed us their refrigerator, piled high with Ziplocked bags of fresh cherries. In the freezer they had frozen cherries. On the table sat a large salad bowl full of pits. "We're making cherry juice, pies, and liquor," they said.

On the sink counter sat a mound the size of two bed pillows. There had to be two thousand cherries waiting to be washed.

"Grab bowls and come with me," said Chad. Susan, Nana, and I followed him out back. He'd borrowed step ladders from around the neighborhood and had them positioned under unpicked limbs. "Get started."

For Papa, who has macular degeneration and can't see around the splotches, Chad pulled out a lawn chair and a table. Papa took a seat and Chad sawed off a couple of big limbs that hung over the roof. Each limb held hundreds of cherries. Papa sat the limbs in his lap and began plucking. For hours we picked, until we had filled ten bags.

We ate a lot, too. Yum. Fat, sweet, juicy.

At day's end, the tree was still loaded with cherries. The highest limbs were untouched. "I'll need a bigger ladder," said Chad.

Anyhow, we got back home. Nana and Papa took half the bags to pass around to their neighbors in Leisure Town. We brought ours home to share with teachers. The next day I went into our kitchen looking for cherries. I figured I'd have a bowl full with the news. We didn't have any.

"Honey, where are all the cherries?"

"I gave them away."

"All of them? You didn't keep any for us?"

"No. Why?"

"Because I wanted some freakin' cherries. I can't believe you gave them all away."

"Don't worry," she said. "We're going to Tahoe soon. We'll stop by the kids' house and get more."

We did. The kids were still picking. The sink was piled high with another mound the size of four-days' laundry. Bags of cherries were stacked on the floor. They couldn't give them to the neighbors because the whole neighborhood was built on the site of an old cherry orchard. The neighbors already had cherry trees. They took them to work as often as possible.

We got five more giant bags of cherries and headed for Tahoe. We gave away four bags to our Tahoe neighbors and began eating the last one. Nana made a pie. I ate them by the bowl every day. By time to come home, the bag was still mostly full. Yum. Yum. More cherries, at last.

Back in Benicia, the next day, I went to the kitchen to get a bowl of cherries to eat during the news. I couldn't find the bag. It wasn't in our empty fruit basket or in the 'fridge. "Honey, where's that last bag of cherries?"

"I gave them to Doris."

"Doris? Our neighbor in Tahoe? I already gave her a bag."

"I know. I gave her another one. She really liked the first bag. She says she likes to eat them while watching the news."

This is the pits. Now I either go to the store and buy cherries, drive all the way to Rancho and back, or do without.

Summer is about making tough decisions.