As I popped a raspberry from the farm stand into my eager mouth I was reminded of my Great Aunt Alice's garden. It had a good-sized raspberry patch. In August, around the time thunder would begin to rumble in the late afternoons, the plump raspberries would be ready to harvest. When I was a child, my Great Aunt's gardener occasionally allowed me to help pick them. If I were diligent I would be given some to bring some home.

"I want to hear you whistling," he would always say. "That way I'll know they're going into the basket and not into your mouth." Then he would chuckle and hand me a wooden basket. Often the raspberry thorns would scratch my hands and arms, yet the minor discomforts were a small price to pay for the delicious taste of these berries sprinkled with sugar and surrounded with some of the cream saved from the tops of the milk bottles that were delivered to our door.

When I think of vanished pleasures of childhood I feel a little sad. Homogenized milk is all there is in the market. Fresh strawberries and even corn are generally available rather than eagerly anticipated in their season. The pears of autumn can now be found all year round. I would see them ripening on the tree, then falling to the ground where I would pick them up and devour them, juice dripping from my mouth as I sank my teeth into their ripeness.

Not many children have the freedom I enjoyed to roam surrounding fields and climb trees. Computers, cell phones, organized sports and social opportunities have replaced the simpler pleasures with which I grew up. Is this bad? No, however lack of the contact I enjoyed with nature has taken today's children and young adults farther from their roots. This can make it more difficult for them to be conscious that we are all children of the earth and that we need to find good ways to care for our precious parent.

May you remember with pleasure those things
that enriched your childhood.