The Blackberry Bushes

August 26, 2010

The vines on the blackberry bushes are hanging low, loaded with succulent fruit. Connor came over to wake Ed Saiedi so they could fill their buckets with berries to put on waffles. I handed Ed a long-sleeved shirt, partial protection against the vines that have a mind of their own, popping out to scratch my hands and arms when I fill my bucket.

A little later I leaned over the rail of my porch to ask a question, and heard an expletive from Ed, one uttered slowly with a long slide on every vowel. From the middle of the lakeside hill, he had slipped, sliding down a few yards until he was stopped by the vines that now entwined him.

“Hold everything, I will come down and help you disengage,” I called and as I was running down the spiral stairs I was thinking of Br’er Rabbit’s taunt to Brer Fox, “Cut off my legs! Do what'nsoever you want to do with me, Brer Fox, but please, please please? Don’t throw me in that briar patch!”

Later in the day Phillippe, the other student who came home with Connor told me that after the blackberries there had been another “incident”. The three men had been out fishing, Phillippe holding the rod. He tugged on his line and the hook came out of the water, swung through the air and lodged in Connor’s neck, a centimetre or two off of being in direct line with his Adam’s apple. They couldn’t get the hook out and went to Glen who took a picture and then drove Connor in the Dr. in Salmon Arm for a moment or two of day surgery.

By evening there was a report that there was a blackberry pie at Glen’s house, where I am sure it is still safe, since everyone there, but Connor, is on a diet.

I have no idea if a piece of the pie might have slipped past the bandage on Connor’s Adam’s apple.

Arta