Raspberries
Dear baby,
Hidden Valley Lane is a great name for a street. Just saying it aloud makes me think the way it rolls off the tongue is rivaled only by the bucolic imagery it evokes. It’s the name of the street on which my family (you know, your dad, grandparents, and auntie Katy) lived for a few years in the late 1980s. In the backyard grew a raspberry patch and on the hot days late in the summer when it was time to pick, my mom gave us little margarine containers to carry the berries. They had little blue “Byerly’s” on the side of them, and the bushes in their raised beds were taller than me.
You’ve never had a raspberry, baby, but you’ll find that the warmer they are the better, and the ones thirty seconds from the plant are even better than the ones from the store. So I had some spectacular raspberries this evening and whenever I eat them, I always remember picking them on Hidden Valley Lane. You’ll have memories like that, too. Keep on growing, you are kicking your mom right now.
Love,
Dad