watermelon thumping

[Joel S. Berson]

A faint memory -- due to loss of IQ points? -- tells me that I
encountered this in the Bronx in the 1940s.

Joel

At 4/9/2011 09:01 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:
>In my part of east Texas, so standard was the practice of thumping a
>melon to test its ripeness that we children had a game of thumping
>the heads of unsuspecting peers and exclaiming "Watermellon!"  Some
>IQ points were no doubt lost in the process of that merriment.
>
>--Charlie
>
>________________________________________
>From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of
>Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
>Sent: Saturday, April 09, 2011 1:01 AM.
>
>
>Instead of rapping his knuckles upon the fruit, my grandfather, as was
>the usual method amongst the colored in Marshall, Texas, thumped the
>watermelon. If, in Grandfather's opinion, the resulting sound
>indicated that the watermelon was not fit for human consumption, the
>vendor would offer to plug it. If my grandfather was not already fully
>persuaded that his own opinion was sufficient, then he would accept
>the offer, whereupon the vendor would plunge his plugging-knife into
>the melon four times, so as to form a rectangle of sorts. At the
>fourth plunge, instead of withdrawing his knife, the vendor would
>employ his knife as a tool with which to lever out the plug.
>Grandfather would then examine the thickness of the rind and take a
>bite of the plug so as to ascertain flavor. If he was satisfied, he
>would buy that melon, paying whatever price was asked, probably
>because it would been quite mean-spirited to hassle these
>extremely-poor people, whose only other source of income was
>share-cropping. And, once The Man had taken out his share, the
>'cropper often found himself in debt, despite months of back-breaking
>labor by him and his entire family.
>
>So-called "country-folk" drove into, around, and through the colored
>part of town on wooden, buckboard-ish wagons drawn by a mule, two
>mules, if the load required them. The bed of the wagon was lined with
>hay for cushioning and the watermelons were placed on top of that.
>
>If the melons were the much-smaller muskmelons, thumping was the only
>test applied. Country-folk also sold other truck, such as
>"purple-hulled" peas. The green hulls had purplish streaks along their
>long axes. The peas themselves were nothing special to look at and,
>when cooked, were indistinguishable from black-eyed peas to my eye and
>palate. Other veggies and fruits were grown by Granddad in his garden,
>gardening being very much his hobby, despite the fact that it meant
>working *hard* in the East-Texas heat and humidity, when he wasn't
>obligated to.
>
>(People plug Kraft's American?! WTF?! Who knew!)
>
>--
>-Wilson
>-----
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
>to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-Mark Twain
>
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>
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