Peach of a Guy

#52ancestors Week 24 

June 11-17 Father’s day

Peach of a Guy 

By Myra Vanderpool Gormley ©2018 

Dad and me and my first puppy. Ca 1945.

He could smell a ripe peach 30 miles away. And nothing could stop him from getting a bushel or two of his favorite fruit. In his 75 years on this earth, he must have eaten 100s of bushels. No peach was safe around him. 

Growing up in Oklahoma with a father whose finely honed sense of smell for food — especially fresh fruit and vegetables provided me with an early incentive to learn to cook well and to distinguish fine products from the so-so. He also taught me PG — practical geography — because he knew every back road with 100 miles of Muskogee, Oklahoma and which farmer had the best peaches, apples, apricots, cantaloupe, watermelons, onions, tomatoes, corn, carrots and okra.

 And, did I mention he was fisherman? Watch out crappies, bass and catfish. He had a hook with your name on it. 

His favorite food spot was a place called Porter, Oklahoma. A wide spot in the road, but famous (at least locally) for its peaches. Conveniently, his and mom’s best friends lived there. They also had a huge garden, which Dad helped them to cultivate. So a trip to Porter was the best of all worlds — see old friends, get a bushel of peaches, and come home loaded with garden-fresh onions, okra, corn and tomatoes, and pig out. 

Dad never had a weight problem. He was a big man, but not fat. He worked hard as an automobile mechanic and burned extra calories foraging for the best fresh food in the country. 

When we moved to Seattle, life in a large city was a new experience for him, plus he had Saturdays off for the first time in his life. He came from background where most people worked six days a week. And, so it was that far from the farms he knew and loved, his nose led him to downtown Seattle and its Pike Place Market. 

There he discovered a food lover’s paradise. He was the proverbial kid in a candy store, sampling and buying to his heart’s content. He’d come home to Ballard via the city bus loaded down with sacks of produce, fresh fish, nuts and bakery goods. When mom’s cupboards and refrigerator overflowed, he’d bring the rest to my house. It was like having my personal shopper.

 It seemed appropriate back in 1985, the year after Dad died, when the Pike Place Market had a renovation campaign that I purchased a tile in his honor. Located at 444-4 near the produce, fish and day tables is a tile with his name — John O. Vanderpool — on it.

 I was — as Dad use to jokingly say — his favorite baby daughter, but my twin brothers were extra-special. After all, they were sons of a peach. 

Groan, if you wish, but my Dad, the punster, would love it.