The Land of Canaan

What seems like a zillion years ago, I went to medical school in southern California. We were out in Pomona, in the farthest eastern reaches of Los Angeles County. I lived in the quaint village of Claremont and rode about 7 miles to school each day courtesy of my roommate Mike. This was a time when one could still find productive plots of agricultural land in those parts. The orange and lemon groves were long gone but a fertile productive field could still be found here and there.

One of those properties was a strawberry field just a mile or so from our apartment. Each year, and it seems like it was twice each year, a little roadside stand would flip open it's lid and a sign would read "Strawberries." I wish I could report that my roommate and I took every advantage of this bounty but, foolish boys, it was only a handful of occasions he would pull over in his trusty old Volvo 120 series wagon.

I'm not the world's greatest fan of strawberries. I can take 'em or leave 'em. My shortcake needs mountains of whipped cream. My favorite presentation is a'la Polachek: strawberries with whipped cream, sour cream, and raw granulated cane sugar. I think dipping them in chocolate is a waste of perfectly good candy. Nonetheless, I loved stopping at that roadside stand.

That stand was always staffed by a single woman whom I'd guess was well into her 70's. She was a large round Mexican woman with beautiful weathered features and eyes that truly sparkled. The berries she had were the size of a young boy's hand. She would take one box, place it on brown paper, and then pile more from another box on top of those until the strawberries were heaped and falling onto the paper. Then her gnarled fingers would fold that paper snug around your bounty and you'd be on your way.

I haven't been back that way in over a lifetime but I would seriously doubt that field still exists. But for a few years of my life it was a wonderful roadside attraction providing berries of Biblical proportion. It was a happy reunion here in Arizona this past weekend when we found similar berries. Evan holds one in the photo above. If only I had snapped a photo all those years ago: That wonderful woman, her tidy bundled packages, those giant berries. Alas, the iPhone and Instagram were lightyears in the future.