{"id":8837,"date":"2025-02-01T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/?p=8837"},"modified":"2025-02-14T17:47:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T17:47:34","slug":"a-crate-of-oranges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brendans-island.com\/catholic-citizen\/a-crate-of-oranges\/","title":{"rendered":"A Crate of Oranges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Various<\/a>
Citrus fruit crate labels: California dreaming and oranges, early to mid-20th century.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turns out that I’ll have to wait for the right season: early winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn’t surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m impressed that we can get any<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Out of Season Oranges, Remembered<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\"California<\/a>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2014 and, of course, it held oranges: not lettuce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crate’s slats \u2014 this I do remember \u2014 were intact, but splintery. And the crate held a good number of oranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father was excited about opening the crate and giving me an orange. I shared his excitement, until I tried eating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2014 being tasteless would have been an improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I know what my father had in mind when he got that crate of oranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>A Cherished Memory and a Belated ‘Thank You’<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"Various<\/a>
Oranges and Truth (Brand), Ramona and a black roadster. Citrus fruit crate labels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

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

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever it is that puts us off the 50th percentile, it’s almost certainly genetic, and that’s another topic.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had responded with an accurate, but unappreciative, description of the crate’s contents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the first and the last crate of oranges he got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decades passed before I put the pieces together, and realized what he had intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I’m saying now what I should have said then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, Dad. I really appreciate those oranges. Thank you very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/a>More Memories<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\"Brian<\/a>There’s a cryptic reference up there: “…in the basement of 818”. It’s the house I grew up in, one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started sharing ‘family stories’ last November, and don’t see running out of them any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One, involving something I don’t<\/strong> remember, will wait until the days are longer and I’m feeling a lot more chipper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He’s a hard act to follow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n