Green Bean Time

The summer vacations from my youth were some of the best times of my life. The hot days were long and stress-free, and the memories from those days are wonderful. One of the best memories from those summer days is Dad’s big garden and green bean time.

Dad planted and took care of the green beans, but it was up to my stepmother and me to do the rest. When the beans were ready for picking, I really dreaded the work, but I somehow always managed to have a good time. We took the long walk down to the garden early in the morning while Dad was still at work. The picking took place early before the heat of the day ramped up, and we took our little mutt dog with us as we felt he would offer some protection from snakes that might be lurking in the garden. 

I carried a large, white-colored plastic bucket that looked as deep as the Grand Canyon when I dropped my first handful of beans inside. My stepmother used a long, woven basket. Some of the beans hid camouflaged among the green plants, and finding them was like a fun little game. Filling the bucket to the top felt like an impossible task, but I knew it had to be done. The morning was picking and dropping over and over again until the sweat came and the pile of green beans came closer and closer to the top.

After my bucket was full, my favorite part of the process started. I took my bucket back to the house and downstairs to a cool, air-conditioned room and a big glass of red Kool-Aid. I sat there comfortably, and removed the strings and broke the beans while I watched shows like Wheel of Fortune and Sale of the Century. The broken green beans were thrown into a plastic cake plate cover. When the cake cover filled to the top, I took the beans up to the kitchen for canning. My stepmother took care of the canning. The jars made a “pop” sound whenever they sealed, and my stepmother had a superstition of saying “thank you” whenever a jar sealed. When I overheard a random “thank you” from the kitchen, I knew another jar of green beans was ready. When the beans were all sealed, I got to write the year on top of the lids with a marker. Then, I carried the jars downstairs to the canning room for storage. Our family had the pleasure of enjoying canned green beans through the winter, and I took a little pride in the work I had done on the beans.

Store-bought beans can never compare to the taste of those homegrown beans. When summer arrives, I still think about those green beans. And I can still smell them cooking.

Blair Bryant, Granite Falls, a member of Blue Ridge Energy