Maine Mountain Blueberries...

My stomached literally roiled up to greet the top of my tongue as I stared at the small pod of blueberry bushes sitting just below the summit of Mt. Avery. It was always a monumentally queazy remembering of the food eaten that first caused one to vomit. And those little blueberries were my own personal "Alamo."

That day long ago came flooding back to me. "Eat your blueberries and milk! Time's wastin' and I don't want you to be late!" Just like mom. Straight to the point.

I just looked at that little bowl of blue bulbs floating in that bottomless sea of skimmed milk. "Yuck!", I thought to myself as I haphazardly drove my spoon into the concoction. "Oh, God please! If you can hear me- help me finish this last bite..." Bringing the spoon full of yuck to my mouth; I shoved it in and swallowed as fast as I could. Almost as quickly, that last spoonful of blueberries and skim milk erupted from the very depths of my stomach, up my throat, out of my mouth and across the kitchen table along with all their other little blueberry buddies. My mother just sat there; incredibly stunned that such a forceful blueberry tempest could originate from such a little boy's stomach.

I stayed home from school that day.

I had just climbed to the 4,000 foot summit of Avery Peak. It took only a few hours to make it to the top but the hot and humid Maine summer sure made me thirsty. I knew water was getting kind of scarce for hikers on the Appalachian Trail and upper New England was entering the third year of a drought. I figured it was better to conserve my water as I headed southbound but, by golly, I sure was thirsty for something refreshing. Then, I spotted those little blueberry bushes.

Strange how 40 years later; I can still hear mom's words: "Eat your blueberries and milk! Time's wastin' and I don't want you to be late!" I slid my sweaty backpack off my shoulders; laid my trekking poles down beside it and sat down on the summit's granite floor using my backpack as a kind of back support.

"Well...", I reasoned to no one in particular, "at least these little blueberries ain't floatin' in that skim milk." Plucking a big berry off a bush; I closed my eyes and shoved it in my mouth. "Sweet! Holy Cow! These things are sweet tasting! I cannot believe it!", I exclaimed aloud. "I just hiked more than 200 miles in the last two weeks and passed up one blueberry bush after another!" What a nut I was.

"Brethren, I could not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." The Book of Phillipians (Bible) 3:13-14