George Singleton recounts the bygone days of watermelon patch raiding

1933 B Model Ford

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Memories of a country boy” was originally published in the June 11, 1998 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

During the years of my teenage life, I wasn’t all bad. I admit that I was guilty many times of participating in a watermelon patch raid or swiping a few fresh ripe peaches from a grouchy old man’s peach orchard who lived in the farming community where I grew up. But, as I look back, it seems that this kind of behavior was expected from the youth of those times. On several occasions, I overheard my father and other men laughing and telling about certain events that was set up to try to frighten the living daylights out of my older brothers and some of their friends when they would raid a watermelon patch or a peach or apple orchard.

When visitors of relatives from the city came to farm communities when the melons were ripe, a raid was organized so as to frighten the living daylights out of the city slickers. It was always proper to show one’s courage to the country girls by taking them on a watermelon patch raid on the night of a date. This is a story of one of those not so organized raids.

It was the summer after I completed the 11^th grade. A friend borrowed his brother’s 1933 B Model Ford for a night on the town. Since there wasn’t a town nearby, other than Sweet Water, that we could have a night on, we decided to carry out dates on a tour of the area. Hardly had the night gotten under way, when someone mentioned, “Why not raid someone’s watermelon patch?”

Since my father’s death, we had discontinued any type of farming. My dear mother and I had moved from the farm to the town of Sweet Water. I had become a city boy of a sorts, and city boys didn’t have watermelon patches. We couldn’t go to my friend’s family patch since he was afraid he would be seen and might have the car taken from him.

The dark haired young lady that I was dating suggested that we visit her father’s watermelon patch. She assured us that she knew a way to get to the patch without being seen. Her talk left no reason to believe that she didn’t know the trail to the patch. She assured us that she had grown up on this farm and knew the lay of the land by heart.

Parking the old Ford at the spot my date indicated us to, we crossed the narrow country road and headed across a large field on the side of a sloping hill. There was a full moon, but heavy clouds floated around the moon causing it to disappear at times, resulting in total darkness. After losing our way several times, we finally came upon the watermelon patch that belonged to my date’s father.

As the heavy clouds slowly moved across the face of the full moon, we eased along the melon rows, seeking out a couple of good juicy watermelons. After “thumping” about half the melons in the patch, we selected the two we thought would best suit our taste for a sweet juicy watermelon eating on a creek bank was not too far from where we had parked. Now all we had to do was return to the old Ford, load up and head to this favorite parking place.

As we slowly made our way down a narrow path in the direction we thought would lead us to the narrow country road where the B Model had been left, the heavy clouds completely covered the face of the full moon. Within minutes, the night had become very dark. As we slowly moved along the faint path, it seemed to me that this wasn’t the path that we had traveled on our way to the melon patch. I confronted my date about the path not being familiar.

She assured me in no uncertain terms that we were on the right path. She reminded me in a firm voice that she had grown up on this farm, she certainly knew where she was going. Shouldering my watermelon, I said no more and followed the young lady down the hill with my friend and his date coming along behind.

All at once, the full moon broke from behind the clouds. To our amazement, we were just a few short steps from the wooden fence that surrounded the family barnyard. Whispering among ourselves, we tried to decide what the next course of action would be. My date, who seemed to know everything, suggested we slip through the barnyard and out to the road that was not too far from where we were standing. I knew that we couldn’t retrace the path we had taken down the hill, because it had grown dark once again and we needed to get to the dirt road as quickly as possible.

Slowly we opened the barnyard gate and eased into the enclosed area. All at once, a young mule in the barnyard began to snort loudly and race around the barn. Fearing that we might be run over by the frightened mule, we raced for the other gate that we had been told that was on the other side of the barnyard. To make matters worse, a small calf lay on the ground there in the darkness. Trying to reach the safety of the gate without dropping my watermelon, I stepped up on the back of the calf, not knowing it was there. This was when all heck broke loose. I fell broadside in the barnyard filth, losing my watermelon. The frightened mule continued to snort loudly and race wildly around the barn. My date’s father came out of the house with nothing on but his night shirt and began to fire his shotgun up into the air. This really caused the raiding party to hook up and get up the road to where we had left the car.

As we finally regained our breath, all wanted to know what had happened to the watermelon I had been carrying. When I told them that I had dropped it when I fell over the sleeping calf, everyone seemed to get quite angry. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t hold on to the watermelon. Nothing was mentioned about my buddy losing the melon he was carrying in all the excitement. Needless to say, there was no watermelon cutting that night on the creek bank.

As usual, my darling mother was awake when I arrived home. As I tried to slip in the house without her seeing me, she turned on the light. There I stood in my new sharkskin pants, dirty and filthy from falling over the sleeping calf. Her words were “Lord, son, what in the world has happened?” I replied that she could go on back to bed, if I told her what had happened, she would not believe it anyway.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)