Keeping It Strange In the USA

Shortly after I got back, I started running again, and my route carried me through the new McMansion subdivisions by my house. The development I was running through was really very nice, with lots of trees, wandering roads, and lovely custom built homes. The problem was that there didn't seem to be anyone -in- them. That is, they were well-kept, with cars in the driveway, maybe a playset in the backyard, and flags on the porch, but I never saw any actual people. Everyone stays holed up in their own home. The only people I really saw outside were construction workers building new houses and law-mowing services, they didn't even come outside to mow their own lawns.

After a few days, when the alienation was starting to get to me a little, my dad proposed that we go pick mulberries to serve with ice cream to guests who were coming to visit us. Thinking of some trees I knew about in the woods when I was younger, and having fond memories of filling pans with hand-picked berries, I agreed. When the time came to go, we stepped out into the garage, and my dad started to get into the car. "We're going to drive, I asked?" my image of a nice walk in the woods fading. "I know a good tree in the new housing development", my dad said, and I grudgingly got in the passenger seat.

We drove to a particular McMansion and parked by the curb. Sure enough, there was a mulberry tree full of ripe fruit a few feet from the side of the road. "You can find them by the stains on the road," my dad explained. I got out and started to pick, but my dad stopped me. "I have a better method", he said, and I watched as he pulled an old stained bedsheet (which he had used previously as a tarp for painting) and a long retractable golf-ball retreiver. "The first ten feet of their lawn is actually public property", my dad explained, "So I feel we are withing our bounds to do this." He laid the bedsheet out under the tree, expanded the golf-ball retreiver, and with it started to shake the upper branches of the tree.

Sure enough, all the mulberries that were ripe enough to pick fell out of the tree onto the bedsheet, and when we had enough, we lifted up the corners of the bedsheet, funneled the berries into the pan, and moved the sheet under a new branch for shaking. Although we got some extra sticks and leaves, we didn't get all messy like you usually do when picking by hand. This was not the greatest benefit of this method, though, as far as I was concerned. The best part came when a couple of women came by, power-walking, in expensive-looking powerwalking clothes. My dad was in mid-shake with his golf-ball retreiver, our stained bedsheet half-full of dark berries, twigs, and leaves, spread out over the immaculate lawn of some stranger's house. "We need pickers!" my dad loudly announced to them by way of greeting. "Ha, ha!" they said. "Picking mulberries?" "We're SHAKIN' em!" he said. "Ha ha!" they said, and powerwalked away, maybe a little faster than before.

With this, I felt a lot better about the new housing developments. Whether or not most people stay inside, their are still mulberry-shakers around, and as it should, the neighborhood belongs to them, not the powerwalkers.