Cherries, Brazier Queen and Biking

July 2007 Julia and I had a number of firsts in our marriage. We took our first extended Hog trip. We met Albert and Sandy at Brandon and headed west up the Yellowhead to Saskatoon, then Red Deer, Saskatchewan Crossing, AB (on the Banff-Jasper Highway). The weather till there was mostly cool and windy. Then the sun came out and we had extremely hot weather. Alberta and Sandy headed north, and Jule and I went south.I had never ate cherries off the vine so to say- I know that they grow on trees, but I had never picked and ate cherries. On this trip I was determined to do just that. And I ate my first bing cherries off the trees at a cherry u-pick-and-eat-as-you-pick cherry orchard. That was a treat. The lady of the orchard had a unique ability to engage in personalization nondiscrimination conversation. I don't know if we were the first visitors she had had in a while or not. You know how it is. If you have not seen a human being for a while, you just wanna talk, right? They say we have two ears and one mouth because we are to listen twice as much as we talk. I never occurred to me to tabulate her mouth count, but both our ears, Jule and mine, sure had a lot of receiving to do as her oral shipping orifice overloaded our retention receptors. How we got her to talk about her cup size- no, I am not talking about that essential device hockey players wear that makes going to the washroom a leviathan of a chore- I have no idea. Heavy near her heart, it became very clear, were her boobs. I don't know if you ever have met a perfect stranger and before you know it you are on the topic of maternal nursing facilities. I my past conversations with strangers I find it a rather significant achievement to just get past the weather phase. These days one hardly knows what to talk about lest one get accused of some type of racism, begotism, intolerance or sexism. Apparently not so with this Brazier Queen. Now I was there for the cherries, and I do not recall the shadow she cast for her feet, but I'm guessing Dolly Parton may have had to take a number to get in line behind her. Now I have never worked in a cherry orchard so I don't know how that works on one's psyche. Here in Manitoba our tourist attraction- back in the days when I was still farming- was the odd car stopping on the shoulder and running into our field to grab some wheat stalks. Now picture me happening to be at the right spot at the right time and being able to chat with these folks. Now imagine how I could enhance the farmer image by talking to these grain header collectors about the size of my- you get where that would end up? It would have solidified the confirmation that indeed farmers assuredly are quite cognitively inept. The fact is our orchard bust girl could also fall under the nomenclature of farmer, a fruit farmer, but she was indeed quite willing to voluntarily expose the truth about her breast size. I have often been amazed how freely people reveal their deepest needs with me. So what if my undergrad studies majored in psychology. Do I have the resemblance of some tabloid columnist who answers kooky questions from fringe hacks divested of sociological hegemony? I would gladly try to assist the lady with her burden and try to give her a lighter yoke, but perhaps we could start with her childhood potty training regime and advance from there. Well, I did not come there for a therapy session with this lady. I was concerned about cherries at the time, and no bra or bust was going to get between me and them cherries. I don't recall how the topic came to the forefront or how we got out of there with just cherries, but Jule and I had quite a chuckle about that lady. But she was friendly, and we had a good time picking cherries. There were actually two firsts for Jule and me. Picking cherries and talking about breasts sizes with a personal stranger of ours all in the same day. Sorry, I forgot where that was. She was talking about getting a breast reduction so I'm sure the carnival moved to another town.