The Dangers of Watermelon Pilfering

Robersonville is located in the middle of farming country. Farms surround the town with maybe a few partially or even wholly within the town limits. In my youth, much of the farm land was dedicated to cash crops like tobacco, cotton and peanuts, but often a small parcel might be set aside for a watermelon patch. Such was the case with a plot not far from where we lived. This particular patch, being close in and within walking distance from a big part of town, was a great temptation to adventurous teenage boys with a hankering for watermelon. One day, while I was shopping in one of the town’s small grocery stores, I couldn’t help but overhear a local farmer complaining about someone sneaking into his watermelon patch, breaking open a number of melons, and eating the fruit from the heart of each. He was so irate that he was telling all who would listen that he was going to fix the scoundrels and inject a number of melons with Spanish fly he used on his bulls. Thus, those who dared raid his patch in the future would get their just rewards. Realizing what impact the animal aphrodisiac would have on teenage boys, I had to alert those were most likely the guilty parties. I found the two melon marauders, told them what was afoot and joined their planning for an exploratory venture that night. Later, that evening, several of us snuck over to the farmer’s patch, selected three of four ripe watermelons and broke them open. Sure enough, in each of them, you could see where a foreign substance had been injected. It was just plain luck that I had overheard the farmer’s threat and was able to save my buddies from a terrible fate.