The dark side of blackberries

Blackberry season is here, and one local picker, speaking on the condition that she remains anonymous, agreed to take me on a berry-picking excursion. Greeting me at the door at daylight, wearing “snake boots” and a pith helmet, she asked me if I would mind putting on a blindfold until we got to the patch.
Yes, a blindfold.
Somewhat taken aback, I asked her why. She replied, “We jealously guard our patch! This one’s the best berry patch I’ve ever found in my life. Would you want to share your gold mine?!”
I pointed out that when driving around I’ve seen many people pick berries right out in the open. Her answer was, “A lot of people just pick on the side of the road, but they’re not serious pickers.”
Hmmm. Serious pickers, huh?
She finally dropped the blindfold idea when I promised not to divulge the location of the patch. On pain of death. Yes, this woman was definitely…serious.
Before we left, she donned the rest of her protective clothing, homemade leather gauntlets that extended from palm to elbow, and first aid tape wrapped around each of the fingers on her right hand.
“There’s thorns on the canes,” she explained, “If they get into your skin, you can pick them out with your teeth while you’re picking, but if you don’t get them out quick enough they’ll start to fester.”
Sounds fun, I thought to myself.
She continued, “You have to be part contortionist to reach the berries and extract yourself from the thorns. And the gloves are so you can get way back in to that BIG, BEAUTIFUL one that you just can’t get otherwise. At least not without losing a lot of blood.”
Heading to the car she tells me to be sure I have plenty of “water, lots of buckets, and bug spray, because there’s little gnats that get in your eyes.”
When we finally arrived at the patch, she warned me, “Watch your step when we get through the barbed wire fence. The patch is full of wild roses, thistles and some locust trees.”
Barbed wire, thistles, thorns and spikes. Didn’t I just see some nice looking berries at the grocery store?
“I usually start whenever its daylight,” she comments. “By ten o’clock my buckets are full, and I’m wringing wet. I feel like a wrung out dish cloth after trying to navigate all these paths, ‘cause its hard trying to keep your balance, and its hot, and I had to get up early.”
So why does she do it, I wondered out loud?
“It just seems appropriate. My mom picked blackberries with her mom, I picked them with my mom, and now my kids pick them with me. It’s just gone on and on and on through the generations,” she answered. “One of my first memories was my mom handing me the top of a double boiler and telling me to go out and pick until I fill it. She said you can eat as many as you want, but you have to come back with the pan filled. I’d come back purple mouthed, purple fingered, scratched as can be. But the reward was the pie or the jam that we had later on. Especially the pie, my mom made good pie.”
So that’s it, I think to myself, a family tradition.
I’m glad my mom bought frozen pies!