In A Different Place And Different Time We Would Be Called Juvenile Delinquints

Parents today would wince at the antics we practiced as children.  If they did not wince they would be brought up on charges of the endangerment to the welfare of children. But so long as we never missed church, showed up farm work and came to meals on time we were free to come and go as we pleased. Which accounted for our watermelon stealing forays.

Kenneth Martin, his wife Luella and three children lived down the road from our farm. Kenneth’s father, Doug, who lived with them, was an off again, on again drunk. Doug’s only income was in the summer from his watermelon patch. No one questioned Doug’s magic with watermelons. His patch thrived through hot weather, cold weather, through too much rain or too little rain. He spent many sober hours tending the crop that would  yield a profit guaranteeing bottles of cheap booze .

Every year as sure as Easter, the Fourth of July, Halloween or Thanksgiving we kids had our ‘raid Doug’s watermelon patch’ foray.  While parents were engrossed in their ‘too tired to move’ after a hard day’s reaping activity, we gathered to play.

But on this particular night the play was a raid of Doug's watermelon patch. As a group we crept down the hill toward the Martin place. At the edge of Doug’s watermelon patch we each took one melon and high tailed back up the hill to Daddy’s barn where we hid the melons. Nightly we cracked one open until the fruits of our crime were gone. As I have grown older and aware of the ability of parents to sense trouble I suspect Daddy knew, as did Shirley Melton, Haskell Moore and even Doug Martin.