An ode to watermelon

It doesn't take much to tell me it's summer.

But the biggest indication? All the cheap watermelon.

Last week gramma shared half of her giant watermelon with me. I took it home. It was good.

Everyone has those memories, most likely from childhood, that take them back and remind them of certain seasons. Sledding in winter, the weather breaking in spring, back-to-school in fall. For summer, though, it's that first juicy bite of a watermelon for me.

Sometimes I get a little crazy when it comes to watermelon. Don can tell you stories of me devouring an entire melon in one sitting, my face dripping, my belly painfully full. It's kind of like alcoholics blacking out after too much to drink - that's me and melons.

Watermelons were discovered in the African Kalahari Desert, of all places, and were good sources of water for the parched residents. Egyptians used to lay watermelon at the tombs of pharoahs to nourish them through the afterlife.

When I die, I want a watermelon, too.

Seeds, seedless, yellow, pink - whatever. Just give me a fork, a napkin (the more the merrier), and a big half-hunk of melon, and I'm in heaven.

You know at funerals, when most people are grieving for their lost friend or relative? I'm probably thinking of watermelon.

It's kind of sexual, if you think about it. Pink flesh. Dripping juices. Sweet and, at times, sour. Serpentine vines with dozes of giant, round spectacles of sin.

Yeah. I said "serpentine."

There are already religions devoted to watermelon. Well sign me up, comrade, because I'm preaching the Good News.

Give me watermelon, or give me...well...maybe some vine-ripe tomatoes would work, too.