Pecans, Pecans

I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had such a bountiful harvest

by PATRICIA JOHNSON, Edgemoor, South Carolina

WHACK! WENT THE hammer, putting a good crack in the pecan, bits of its smooth shell flying across the porch. A hammer wasn’t really the best tool for this job, but I couldn’t find our sturdy old nutcracker. I dropped the cracked nut into the bowl at my side. Daddy would do the actual peeling. I reached for my next victim. Only 80 gallon-buckets to go, I thought ruefully. I wasn’t exaggerating. All my life my family had picked and shelled pecans from our fruitful trees come October, but I couldn’t remember a year when we’d harvested 80 buckets’ worth. More than enough for a batch of my father’s famous holiday fruitcakes to hand out to expectant friends. In the past, Daddy would have been out on the porch working alongside me, but…

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The Joys Of Christmas (Digital) - 1 Issue, 2020

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