Coming out of there, there was a busy street with three of these old trees in a row planted in the center divider.
And they were loaded with persimmons. Hachiyas, as far as I could make out from the distance, ie, the kind you don’t want to eat until they’re as soft and sweet as loose bowls of jelly barely held in by the soft skins.
I love Hachiyas, and I know a lot of people around here who don’t because it’s too easy to have the side away from the sun have a bit of that unripe banana puckeriness right in the middle of the bite. You have to wait till they really are ripe. Which they are about now.
But can you imagine sitting in your car at a red light, along with the guy behind you and the guy behind him, while those orange softballs go plop on your paint job? And all the raccoons, possums, and skunks that would be drawn to the middle of the street in the night? I was surprised there wasn’t a flock of crows caahing away there; they certainly do around the tree in my neighborhood.
I’m picturing a guy with a shovel and three close-outs from the nursery at the end of bare-root season who maybe didn’t have a yard of his own so he just planted them where they would benefit everybody. Right?
Plop. Plop plop plop plop plop plop plop.
Wait. Maybe they’re all that’s left of a long-ago farm?