Lemon Tree, Very Tasty!

A year or so after moving to Georgia, we went on vacation to Florida for spring break. We visited relatives all along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

In Delray Beach, we stopped to spend the day with Dad's Uncle Fred and his wife. This delightful, slender, couple-- who seemed about a hundred years old at the time-- had the two, coolest, craziest lemon trees we had ever seen, about four feet tall and four to five feet wide. The lemons were bigger than most grapefruit, almost as big as my younger brother Bill's head. Very tangy, a little sweet, not bitter at all. They offered to let us take a couple. Bill picked the largest lemon on each tree.

Once we were home, mom made some lemon meringue pies. She made four pies from one lemon. Seriously. And they were awesome, as befits pies made from lemons so big Texas was jealous.

Bill took a lemon to school (William Robinson Elementary School) for Show & Tell. He was in either first or second grade. His teacher, who shall remain nameless, "corrected" him, explaining he had a grapefruit. My brother insisted it was a lemon and explained that Mom had made two pies from half a lemon. The teacher called him a liar and made him sit back down.

This story came out, slowly, at the dinner table, when Mom or Dad asked Bill how Show & Tell had gone. I remember the gasps from the other kids (and me), mom's indignation, the quiet fury on Dad's face. We almost felt sorry for the teacher. Almost, but not quite. She'd grossly misjudged our brother. She had impugned not only his honor, but the whole family's. We siblings all felt personally impugned because we knew she'd have called us liars as well. She was doomed, and rightly so.

Dad went by Willy Rob first thing the next morning to discuss it with Mr. Strelec, the Principal (a great guy, who rightfully later became the county's Superintendent of Schools). Mr. Strelec called the teacher in and asked her what had happened. She looked right at him and Dad and told the same story as Bill had. She admitted calling Bill a liar.

I don't recall all the details, but I do recall the quiet victory, the joy in justice, on Dad's face as he relayed the teacher's withering under the Principal's response. She called Bill up in front of the class and apologized for calling him a liar, explaining that he had been correct. Dad and Mr. Strelec were there, and Dad was under the distinct impression that had they to been there, she wouldn't have done it. She seriously resented having to. Bill was vindicated. We all were.

The teacher was gone the next year. Hopefully she learned some life lessons from this, perhaps about integrity, the very virtue she said my brother lacked. "Let she who is without sin cast the first lemon."