29 July 2006

Such Were the Scars


I was just out back enjoying an annual Anarchist pastime. I was picking blackberries for the first time this summer. Dope City's overly hot summers have given us years of blackberries sweeter than the beginning of hockey season.

While many gardeners do all they can to beat back the brambles each year I tend the blackberry patch like some people care for their prize roses or orchids. They are never fertilized except by the shit of rats, cats, bats, squirrels and birds. They are watered only by the sky. Most years I get more pounds of blackberries than the harvest of all my fruit trees put together.

When the Hockey family was young, industrious, Anarchistic and without many other weekend options we would head into the blackberry fields to pick berries. Mom made jam and froze lots for winter pancakes and fruit salad. Dad made blackberry wine strong enough to start Grandma telling her stories about growing up in motherfucking Manitoba. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw a car Beer?"

When the Hockey family finished picking blackberries we looked like we had been the victims of a late night visit from Charles Manson. Such were the scars you could not tell blackberry stains from bloodstains.

Get yourself some Free Blackberries. They will go good with the corn ripening in the green fields of dope and dust. And the scars will toughen you up for yet another losing season from the Dope City Canucks.

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