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The Lumberjack’s Daughter and the Doctor’s Son By Lloyd Hudson Frye “Do you know where John Brandenberg is?” Without looking up, I nodded toward the back of the stand. After she walked by, I finally looked up, then wondered what a young, good-looking chick was doing asking for John. As she walked away, I watched how she walked and couldn’t find anything wrong with the look. I snuck one more glance at her great looking derrière and a perfect set of tapered legs before she disappeared behind a wall of plastic. It was hard to concentrate on trimming lettuce with the image of her in my mind. John Brandenberg was an ex-Kroger produce buyer, who had gone out on his own to open a fruit stand on the south end of a college town in northern The stand was divided into two 20x20 foot areas. One half housed the cooler, the other half was the sales side, where old tables served as display cases and a sheet of plywood served as a check-out counter, with an antique cash register at one end. Handmade signs hung over each display. Ripped pieces of plastic flapped whenever a breeze came up, a real “low overhead” operation. The crew who worked the stand matched the business to a tee. Sara, a hippy chick from campus, Tim, an overweight guy that called himself “Big C” for Chicago, and me, a tall, long-haired doctor’s son who had become quite comfortable with my underachievement in life. And now a dream girl named JoBeth. I’d come to town via Vallejo, CA, Angwin, CA, Kansas City, MO, Lakeport, CA, Middletown, CA , Milo, OR, Glendale, OR, Portland, OR, Keene, TX, Houston, TX, St. Helena, CA, and Napa, CA. She had come via New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, I came chasing an ex-girlfriend that had left me, because I didn’t like being the one that got left and thought I could get her back, then leave her. She was evicted by a landlord with a nephew that needed a place, in a hard-to-find-a-rental town nearby. I always pursued the beautiful, funny, intelligent women that caught my eye. She was always being pursued by men with an eye for beautiful, funny, intelligent women. I had spent the last ten years on several college campuses, successfully avoiding a degree. She had spent the last ten years raising three kids, while married to a small business owner. I was unattached for the moment. She was divorced after catching her husband straying. I had nothing. She had left her marriage with nothing, just walked out with the clothes on her back. The next day, when she reported to work, I was counting my blessings. She was hoping the rude guy would leave her alone. “So, are you from around here?” I knew it was corny but I had to start somewhere. “Not really.” “I just moved here.” “…” “Welcome aboard the fly train.” My attempt to be funny, since flies buzzed around the decaying fruit on a continuous basis. “Thanks, I think.” “…” I was blowing it. Time to get back to work. The fruit stand was hard work and soon we both fell into a working relationship to survive the crushing workload. All merchandise had to be weighed at checkout, except the occasional item. The lines were long, the pricing was set low to keep them that way, and the heat was wilting everything and everybody. By late afternoon, John was thirsty and lonely, so JoBeth and I got to keep him company in a bar across the way. John and I were used to pounding drinks down; in her attempt to keep up, she would get very drunk from time to time. We played the usual games of cat and mouse people play when there is an attraction. I didn’t really mind the games, because it was all part of chasing after what I wanted. She didn’t mind the games, because she wasn’t in the market for another man and it gave her something to do at work besides working. We were good at games. I had been kicked out of a girlfriend’s house by her mother for talking too smooth. She had been noticed and admired by smooth-talking guys all her life. There were only two women I wanted to live with, that got away. She had only let two men she wanted, live with her. Both of us were used to getting what we wanted. As firstborns, we knew what we wanted, or at least what we didn’t want. At first, there wasn’t any real exchange between us. She still thought I was rude and I wasn’t about to show interest and have her blow me off. And so the dance proceeded week after week, with neither of us making a move toward the other. Over time the inevitable happened, we got to know each other while struggling to keep up at work. The prices were low, and the class of the customers even lower. The worst season was the strawberry season, marked by a pushing and shoving fest, where getting the flat with the most berries was the prize and injuring another shopper was of little concern. The work was hot and sweaty, the air muggy and windless, the heat was unbearable, and the employees grouchy. When I took breaks to let the sweat harden a bit, I’d watch the trails of sweat on JoBeth’s shoulders form patterns like the pictures of a river delta taken from a satellite. The girls worked the sales counter and the guys the produce, but we all made sure we had our salt tablets with us each morning. Cantaloupe crates weighed over 180 pounds and had to be stacked five high, which meant, over the head of the guy swinging the crate. Then there was the Texas Stripes, watermelon weighing 25 to 45 pounds that had to be stacked neatly on big counters. These kinds of high-end duties had a tendency to build muscle over time and if it wasn’t for the drinking, from morning till night, I may have had six pack abs instead of a six pack of warm beer in the back to chase the headaches away. One day, I opened up the truck’s back door and saw 30 boxes of dried up mushrooms and started laughing immediately. “What do we have here John, last month’s mushrooms somebody forgot to throw out?” “Don’t worry. We’ll mark the price down and move ‘em quick.” “How about 50 cents a pound? “Sure.” “I can’t believe you actually paid for these.” John always wore sun glasses so you never got to see his eyes. Even in the bar at night he wore them. One woman asked why the mushrooms were so shriveled up. John told her that they were now fully mature and ready to eat, that usually a person can only find immature mushrooms for sale that were big, rubbery and firm. JoBeth and I laughed at that one for weeks. Long after I had moved in with her, when we were shopping and saw something wilted or wrinkled, we would laugh and say “mature product.” Lettuce was a staple in the produce stand and I trimmed a lot of it. When it was good, it was easy to trim and a box could be readied for display in 2-3 minutes. The borderline stuff was a challenge. The edge of each leaf was medium brown and the overall feel was semi-slimy. These less than desirable heads took extra time to pick off the edges without exposing another edge just below. I had worked produce for years at this point and could freshen up almost anything, which was a good thing since John had a strong leaning to buy “bargains” and relied on big city markets to discount produce no one else wanted. This meant quickly going through boxes of apples and citrus while doing a display and getting rid of bad fruit and adjacent fruit that had blemishes so quickly customers didn’t see the discard box. A woman came in one day and said she could buy a head of lettuce in The lines in the stand were long most of the day, and the speed of checking customers out became one of the ways we paid our way with John. JoBeth was quick on the scales and lightning fast on the register. When the lines became so long it was hard to tell who was next, I would pick the customers with 10 items or less. I’d look in the bag, mentally add up the prices in my head and give the total to the mouth-wide-open customer standing there. The certainty of the total was hardly ever questioned because of the way I presented the figure and stood impatiently waiting for payment. And most people were glad to pay and get out of the humid, hot, unventilated, plastic-sheeted, and crowded stand. The bar scenes with JoBeth, me, and John were stories all to themselves. John liked company when he was engaged in “refreshing” himself, so he insisted the two of us join him at the bar, while Sara and Tim were busy at work. There were resentments, but nothing was said, since it wouldn’t do any good to complain to John anyway. After a hot, sweaty unloading of the truck, the cool, dark bar was a welcome relief from the heat. Add some drinks and you have the makings of a party, not work. Although married, John, after plenty of drinks, would tell JoBeth what he could do for her if she would consider him romantically. John said there would be a car and vacations involved as well as a nice place to live instead of the run down apartment she called home. I would counter with no car, no house, no exotic vacations, but a life that would be anything but boring. After I moved in, all my promises of having nothing were initially kept. The following quarter found me back in college and I began to break those promises one by one. There was a sense that a new family, modular as it was called back then, had formed and was getting stronger with the passing of each week. The only initial promise I’ve kept through all these years, is the one about never being boring. © Copyright, Lloyd H. Frye Click here to read Lloyd H. Frye’s Brief Bio.
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