At the end of the school year Dale went to his home to Napa to work driving hay truck for his cousin. I arrived home in Cornville just in time to begin hoeing Dad’s watermelons. Because funds were tight and the melons were not ready for sale yet, Dad had taken a job in town as a mechanic in the Chevrolet garage. This meant my sister Edie and I would be caring for the watermelons.
In order to avoid some of the intense Arizona heat, we would get up while it was still dark, and before eating breakfast, to hoe the weeds from the melons. We had to thin them and tum the vines out of the furrows to keep the melons out of the water and from being stepped on. We normally did not mind this job and liked getting out before it got too hot. One morning she and I ran out of energy, and we just sat in the furrow and started complaining. We did not complain long, though, and turned our complaining into composing a poem that ends with a positive note. Even though the watermelons were just beginning to set, we knew this would be the result of our summer’s work.
The Watermelon Patch
I wish I were a bump on a log.
For hoeing watermelons is not fun,
I wish I were finished—
And I’ve just begun.The stickers in the patch are thick.
I hoe so hard !feel I’m sick.
And when the sun comes up its hot!
!feel like I’ve been cooked in a pot!But when the watermelons are ripe
How glad I’ll be I rose before light.
For with the stickers out of the way,
“Let’s have some watermelon!”
You ‘If hear me say.And then to the store we go to sell
To satisfy the people’s yell.
If they only knew how much work it took,
They’d buy them to fill every corner and nook!Edie Mundall
Carolyn Mundall
The summer went by quickly. Not only were there watermelons to care for including the weekly irrigating, but we were sewing our new school clothes, and helping Mother with all the house work. Dale did write me two times, but I didn’t respond for a couple of weeks after each letter. As I read those letters my heart longed for the broken relationship to be restored.
Carolyn and Edie at the end of the summer on the watermelon farm.
I wasn’t sure I would be returning to Monterey Bay Academy. Dad and Mom wanted me to go to Thunderbird, the Adventist academy in Scottsdale, Arizona, and I knew this while still in my junior year at MBA. Edie would be a freshman, and my parents wanted us to be together and not so far away from home. I had a strong desire to return to MBA, however. Edie had been enamored with the stories I had related, and she wanted to go to MBA, too. Somehow, we convinced our parents that Monterey Bay Academy would be a much better school for us than Thunderbird .
This is much later date on a vacation at home, but
shows us in the watermelon patch taking a
watermelon refreshment break. Left to right:
unidentified helper, Dad, Dale, Mike, Carolyn.
Bruce is behind Dad.
My Cup Overflows. Copyright © 2009 by Carolyn Ratzlaff. All Scripture quotations—except where otherwise noted—are from The New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1979, 1994 by the Lockman Foundation, used by permission. All rights reserved. Life Assurance Ministries, Inc.
Carolyn has always been a positive person enjoying life and outdoor activities such as hiking and gardening, and she and her husband currently raise a good portion of their own food in small grow boxes. She also reads many health journals and is often surprised at the contrast between what was taught through the writings of Ellen White on forbidden items of diet and health, and the beneficial evidence of these same items which is supported by a plethora of scientific studies.
She and her husband Dale Ratzlaff have two married sons and four grandchildren.
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