On our way to Vernal with my mom, we stopped at Smith's in Heber...just to pick up some healthy snacks for our trip to Vernal. We were in the produce section, and hidden away by the grapes, we saw a plastic container with figs! We were so surprised because this fruit is very rare around these parts. My mom was so excited, and so was I since I have not had fresh figs since I was little and we lived in Argentina. This is were my childhood comes in. We lived with my grandparents (my mom's parents) for a big portion of my childhood, until I was 9 and we moved to the USA, and when I was 10 we went back for 6 months, but my mom and I have not been back since then. My grandfather had a lot of land, we had lots of fruit trees, including plums, pears, apples,lemons, and FIGS! In fact my grandfather's land had about 5 fig trees. As a little girl, playing outside in my grandparent's land we would pick figs all day long and eat them right off the tree. This also brings back great memories for my mother and of all the amazing tastes we used to enjoy when we lived with them. I know it may seem silly, but I had a great childhood and miss them terribly. I wish my kids had the kind of childhood I had, playing outside ALL day long, we didn't get bored exploring the land, playing on railroad tracks behind my grandparent's land, catching frogs from the ditches in the street, living in a place where everyone knows you, and everyone watches out for each other, and there is no danger of kids being outside at night, riding bikes with friends, playing hide and go seek in the dark while all the adults sat outside in the evening visiting with each other until the 1am bus would go by, and everyone knew that it was time to go inside and call it a night, creating projects in my grandfathers tool shed, (he had so many fun things that kids really should not play with) but he loved us, and never got mad at us even when we would play with his paints, eating fruit off their trees, watching my grandfather care for his maticulous, garden, watching my grandfather killing a chicken every week and watching as my grandmother gutted it and preparing it for all of us to eat...I know sounds gross, but I have not tasted anything like that ever since. Those are memories I have that I cherish and wish we lived in a world where that would be possible now. So you see, eating those figs on our way to Vernal sparked all these great memories I have of my childhood, and I know it meant much more to my mom. They were amazing, and I miss them.
