A Crate of Oranges

Number-three daughter asked me to see if I could get a pomegranate. This was a week or so back, in mid-January.

There weren’t any in the produce section. Or, rather, I didn’t see any. So I asked when, or if, they’d be there.

Turns out that I’ll have to wait for the right season: early winter.

I wasn’t surprised.

I’m impressed that we can get any out-of season fruit. And that so much of what’s in the produce section won’t grow here in the Upper Midwest. Being as old as I am, with a pretty good memory, helps.

The pomegranates that weren’t there brought to mind a cluster of memories involving a wooden crate, sincerely awful oranges, and a posthumous sense of gratitude.

Out of Season Oranges, Remembered

Somewhere during my preteens, my father got a crate of oranges. How or where he got it, I didn’t know then, and still don’t.

We were in the basement of 818, in the unfinished part near the furnace, probably during winter. The crate was, as I recall, on a table; or maybe on a storage chest.

At any rate, it was a wooden crate: a bit like the one in that “California Giant Brand Lettuce” crate label. Only wider, nowhere near as finished-looking — and, of course, it held oranges: not lettuce.

I think the ends were solid wood, without a label, but with lettering stamped on them. But I’m not sure about that. It’s been a long time. This would have been in the 1950s.

The crate’s slats — this I do remember — were intact, but splintery. And the crate held a good number of oranges.

My father was excited about opening the crate and giving me an orange. I shared his excitement, until I tried eating it.

I knew what oranges tasted like, and recognized a faint echo of that taste. But mostly, I was aware that I had a mouthful of something fibrous, tough, and — being tasteless would have been an improvement.

I have acquired a degree of thoughtfulness and reserve over the intervening decades. But I was a preteen then, and told my father exactly what it tasted like.

It wasn’t until much later that my father mentioned bits and pieces of his childhood memories related to oranges. Long after that, I put the pieces together.

I think I know what my father had in mind when he got that crate of oranges.

A Cherished Memory and a Belated ‘Thank You’

His father had, when possible, gotten a crate of out-of-season oranges for his family. It was a high point of their year.

How a blue-collar Irishman in northern Illinois during the Roaring Twenties (or thereabouts) managed it, I don’t know.

But my father’s not unlike his father, and I inherited at least part of my father’s knack for getting things done. Or, rather, mentally gnawing at a process until I made it happen.

Whatever it is that puts us off the 50th percentile, it’s almost certainly genetic, and that’s another topic.¹

The point is that getting a crate of off-season oranges was a bright spot in my father’s family memories: one that he wanted to share with me, both as one of his memories, and as part of my experience.

I had responded with an accurate, but unappreciative, description of the crate’s contents.

That was the first and the last crate of oranges he got.

Decades passed before I put the pieces together, and realized what he had intended.

So I’m saying now what I should have said then.

Thank you, Dad. I really appreciate those oranges. Thank you very much.

More Memories

There’s a cryptic reference up there: “…in the basement of 818”. It’s the house I grew up in, one of them.

I mentioned it in the November 23, 2024 post, under ‘Getting Started: Cats, Homes, and an Incendiary Stove’. You’ll see it in the usual link list, below.

I started sharing ‘family stories’ last November, and don’t see running out of them any time soon.

One, involving something I don’t remember, will wait until the days are longer and I’m feeling a lot more chipper.

I touched on it in the December 28, 2024, post, under ‘Desolation, Dissatisfaction, Depression, and a Prayer’. Anyway, I’ve talked about my father before.

He’s a hard act to follow:

• “Early Diagnosis, Tardy Treatment, and a Gimpy Hip” (January 25, 2025)
  • Shock at the Reference Desk
  • Responses
• “Damp Farmland, an Accident, and Accepting Good News” (December 21, 2024)
  • (this is a short one)
• “Christmas: Family, Lights, and a Little Weirdness” (December 28, 2024)
  • Desolation, Dissatisfaction, Depression, and a Prayer
• “A Change of Pace: Family Stories” (November 23, 2024)
  • Getting Started: Cats, Homes, and an Incendiary Stove
    • Racing Into a South Wind
• “Sledding With My Dad: Good Memories” (June 22, 2024)
  • Memories and a Legacy

¹ I’m not ‘normal’, which is a good news / bad news situation:

• About Me
  • Brilliant, Talented, and On Medication
    • Events and Interests