Raining avocados

(Actually, the more appropriate title for this blog entry would be "hailing avocados," as they don't fall very gracefully.  But I'll get to that later.)

I don't think I ever tasted an avocado when I was growing up as a kid in Ohio.  It is just not a mid-west kind of food to eat.  Our staples were corn and beans, chicken, beef, apples, blueberries, potatoes, and other such things.  Avocados seemed to be more of an exotic fruit (or vegetable?), something you might eat if you visited the exotic state of California.  At some point I was introduced to this whatever it is, perhaps during that year I lived out in sunny CA.  I found that avocados are not my favorite food.  OK, I don't care for them at all.  They are slimy and don't have much of a taste.  And guacamole is just good for nothin'.

The Carter's were my Texas family:  Mark and Robin (dad and mom), and Jeremy (who played the part of lil bro quite well) and Tiffany (lil sis).  I adopted them and they adopted me.  It was mutual.  We attended church together and I would frequently join them for lunch after Sunday service.  Some of our favorite restaurants were Mexican.  Mark would order extra guac, and I scooped the mushy pile off of my plate and add it to his.  He always remarked on how good it was and I would retort that the green stuff was just something that ruined a perfectly good Mexican meal.  It was a similar routine every time.

We recently discovered that there is a avocado tree in our front yard.  This fact was previously unknown to us because the tree is rather tall (we never looked up that high) and the base was surrounded by plants (so we never saw avocados on the ground).  Meti cleared away the brush and found the evidence.  The avocados have now started to ripen.  The problem is that the tree is so tall that we are unable to reach the produce before it falls to the ground and explodes with the impact.  Well, not a problem for me (see above).  But Becky does enjoy an occasional avocado.  Apparently the Dooleys have developed some sort of contraption to pick them which involves a very long bamboo stick and a bucket.  We might have to give that a try.  I'll take a picture for you all.

So Mark Carter... this one is dedicated to you!