Angel Butts...

We have a friend that owns an orchard along the Columbia River in Kettle Falls. We went to her fruit stand the other day... and bought some of the first picks of peaches and angel butts...(apricots). Oh My GoodNess! Talk about sweet! And... so juicy... that you better eat the peaches standing over the sink... or wear a bib... or you will have juice dripping down your chin... all over your cheeks... and from your fingers to your elbows!

Only one thing compares to the freshest of fresh fruit like that... and that was my Grandfather's apricot tree in his backyard and the memories I had there when I was a child. My two cousins and I used to play in his backyard in Southern California as children. We used to run around in his sprinkler with just our undies on. The little Mexican children that lived in the neighborhood... used to hang on the chain link fence and watch us. I wonder if they thought that we were really strange... or if they too wished they could join us in the sprinkler... to be relieved from the summer heat.

The "angel butts" used to get so ripe and so huge on that tree that they would just beg to be picked by our little hands! They were so sweet... and the juice ran like turning on a faucet down our arms and dripped off of our elbows into the dirt by our bare feet. By the time we had our fill of the branches that bowed to us so as to be within our reach... we were covered in a sweet and muddy layer of summer that I will never be able to forget.

Our tummies full... we would resume playing in the sprinkler... (mostly to get clean)... and to frolic in the coolness of water being splashed on our innocent childhood memories.