Senior Thievery

The little town where we live, and it's specific churches and businesses will remain unnamed, but for the sake of flow, we'll call the town Daisy. Daisy is one of those little prairie villages that is mostly seniors, mostly church-goers, and mostly harmless. We do have a new element moving in, but they're just collectively called the Druggies. They're the people who've been forced out of other towns and found themselves in Daisy for a time. We have two churches in town. The Baptist and Proud runs about 50 people, but the Church of Heritage runs about 200. I married into one of the Heritage families, so that's where we attend.

Here in Daisy we have our own special generation of religious, thrifty seniors. Sometimes they're religiously thrifty, and sometimes they're thriftily religious, but the first is something I could use a little more of myself, and the second is not for me to judge. They all survived the depression/dust bowl out on the Oklahoma prairie, raised their children and spent their lives and strength out on the farm.

One of the funny things I've noticed about them is how they cannot stand that a fruit tree might go unappreciated for a season. You haven't seen funny until you've seen a group of senior ladies with big white sheets and broomsticks shaking down the mulberries from the tree at Mr. and Mrs. Whosits' old house. The Whosits aren't going to use them, because they're in the home, poor souls, so why let all that purply goodness go to waste, right? I'm not kidding. They'll lay sheets on the ground, and start shaking those branches with broomsticks. When the sheets are covered with mulberries, they'll wrap them up and take their loot home to make mulberry cobbler, mulberry jam, and other manner of sweets.

There's also an apricot tree across the street from the dorm, and since the house is empty (The Druggies left when they couldn't pay their bills.), the Senior Swipers feel free to start their usual procedures. Almost every evening someone is out there gathering apricots. The photo at top is the pile of rejects from someone's sweet little grandmother. And let me tell you, if a Daisy grandma can't use it, it's unusable. Period.

Last night as we went by, the couple out picking fruit invited us to come over and get some any time we wanted. They do have some right to ownership, since the man who was picking the apricots is also the man who mows that yard. He can't stand for one of the houses on the street to look so unkempt. Since he can't do anything about the dilapidated house, he keeps the lawn presentable.

I suppose they're entitled. Surviving on the Oklahoma prairie isn't easy, and these families have thrived. Maybe it was all the extra fruit. All I know is, it's a vicious race against the clock to get into our new house before the pears ripen on the tree out front. It's probably still fair game, since we aren't actually sleeping there, and Mr. M has been mowing our lawn off and on all season, well, the parts of it you can see when you drive by, anyway.