Throw Back Post: Quick Sherman, to the WayBack machine...

Specialists and knowledgeable folks agree that olfactory stimulation can promote the most evocative memories. I am here to tell ya...

I opened a package of Archer Farms Apricot 100% real fruit strip (Target house brand) ... took a bite... and was transported to my grandmother's apricot orchard outside Hollister California.

There is nothing closer to God, nothing more dear, than walking down through the orchard early in the morning and picking a ripe plump apricot from the tree. God points out the one you should choose by highlighting it with a glistening drop of dew. Turning it gently, breaking it along the seam, laying open the halves. Then that first glorious bite into the soft succulent flesh. Ah, ambrosia!

When the fruit is just-so ripe, as only Grampa Ray can tell then it is harvest time. He will go off to Tres Pinas and hire a crew of migrant workers to come in and pick. Then the cutters begin to drift in. One older couple have come down every season for the last 12 years to cut apricots. They say it is good retirement money and besides it is a chance to get out and do something they love.

So we stand around 3'x10' foot wooden trays with a lug of fresh picked apricots at our side and we cut. And we chat. And we cut. Grandma always gets a couple boxes of those fruit knives. Some with the small pointy blades, some with the longer squarish ends. Just depends on which one you favor.

And you cut. Starting at the stem hole, following the seam down one side and back up the other side. Gently split the apricot apart, flick the pit loose into a coffee can and then lay the halves face up on the drying tray. Repeat. Again...and again...and again.

But it is all good.

After 7 or 8 feet of stacked trays of cut fruit are assembled they are wheeled into the sulfur house. Grampa Ray carefully sets the the measured pile of sulfur alight and then seals up the tar paper 'house'. The next morning the house is opened and the trays are taken out. All of the fruit is still round and wobbly. Grampa drives them slowly to the lower end of the orchard and lays them out on the ground in the direct sunlight. When I peak there are trays covering every open patch of ground as far as the eye can see.