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The Rock of Well summer is upon us here in It all began with a song: “Blackberry Boogie”. But the blackberry part could be substituted out for blueberry, raspberry or strawberry. You could even fit elderberry in it if you said it fast enough. I can still see that 10” 78-rpm record spinning on the turntable. It had a bold red label and was issued by the “Tops” company, an off-label brand that issued popular songs of the day by unknown or as-yet-undiscovered artists. The company’s ad jingle was “Two hits for two bits”. So off we’d drive to the woods, buckets at the ready, to begin our morning of berry picking. When I was not much more than a toddler, or “bit o’ bairn” to borrow from my Scottish roots, I rushed into the patch growing in a swampy area next to the edge of the woods and began putting tender, ripe raspberries into my tiny bucket. Soon there was a pile of luscious red berries in my bucket, and I scampered off as quickly as my little legs would take me to show mom. When I reached mom, my little jaw must have dropped as I looked into my bucket to show her the bulging pile of berries. My head swiveled back and my eyes darted about my recent path. Where were the berries? My little feet must have flown so fast that all the berries must have tumbled out of my little bucket. But there were no red berries strewn on the path behind me. Where did they go? All that was left in my bucket was a thin layer of red goosh. Where could all of those berries have gone? And so a life lesson began…never run with raspberries in your bucket. You know, I think we adults can take a lesson from that thin layer of raspberry goosh too. We all live at a much faster pace than we used to, speeding down the highway of life rather than meandering along the secondary roads. But like raspberries, some of life’s sweetest pleasures are too delicate to be enjoyed at high speed. May I offer you a suggestion, dear reader? Every once in a while, pull off “life’s highway” and take the side road. Meander a bit and enjoy your journey. And when you visit And until you get here, you can still bring the sweet goodness of ~Todd |