I have decided, sometime in my not-as-young-as-I-once-was years, that I don’t like cucumbers. Well, at least I don’t like raw cucumbers. I’ve given them ample opportunities to prove themselves, but they’ve come up short. I’ve even tried cucumber sandwiches. Actually, I have decided the reason I do not like cucumbers, is because I have realized that cucumbers don’t like me. It doesn’t take me long after eating a few raw cucumbers to regret eating any cucumbers. They come back to haunt me! Now, pickled cucumbers, otherwise known simply as pickles, are a different story. I do like pickles, especially sweet pickles. I’m not sure what the pickling process does to them, but pickles don’t do to me what raw cucumbers do to me.
Many years ago, I discovered a different kind of pickles that quickly became my favorite. Jean and I had a large vegetable garden back then. One year we had a bumper crop of cucumbers. I discovered that a family of two does not need a dozen hills of cucumbers. A dozen hills of watermelons is different, but not cucumbers. Actually, I don’t remember exactly how many I planted that year, but I learned that cucumbers can be as prolific as rabbits.
I had already realized by then that I didn’t want any more raw cucumbers, so we made pickles. We made pickles, pickles and more pickles. We probably gave you a jar or two of them. Jean tried several different recipes. I like dill pickles, especially sliced dill pickles on a hamburger. My favorite dill pickles are those that have a pod or two of hot pepper in the jar. They have just the right kick. My favorite kind of pickles are sweet ones, and my favorite sweet pickles are the ones called icicle pickles. Jean made those that bumper crop season. I had never had them before, but it was love at first bite. If you’ve ever had an icicle pickle you may know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t had one, you’ve missed a treat! I requested that we not give those pickles away. If that sounds selfish, it’s probably because it was. I would eat those icicle pickles with anything and everything and with nothing at all.
I haven’t had an icicle pickle in quite a few years, but I still remember them fondly. I thought about them just this past week.
A few years ago, I discovered another kind of pickle that has become my favorite. It is called pickleball. I like playing pickleball even more than eating pickles. Recently, it has been too cold to play. It was cold enough last week to have icicles hanging off the roof of the house. When it’s that cold and you are playing pickleball, you had better take plenty of pickleballs because in freezing-cold weather they crack when you hit them. That, however, has never stopped the avid pickleball player from playing. I have gone snow skiing in freezing weather, and I have played pickleball in freezing weather. Last week I put on some of my old snow-skiing clothes and played pickleball in them. As I worked up a perspiration under all those ski clothes, I thought I might have icicles hanging on my body before long. I guess since I was playing pickleball in such cold weather, it made me remember those icicle pickles.
Anyway, I was reminded that we do what we really want to do, even when it’s probably too cold. If what we’re doing is something we should be doing, eat a pickle, and as Nike used to say, “Just do it!”
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
