Now my brother and I were ready. It was a hot summer morning so we were wearing old jean shorts and fresh T-shirts. We were on our new bikes, holding the Parkay Butter containers that would soon hold the fruit of the summer. That fruit was the blackberry.

            When we were ready, we, on our bikes, headed out of the garage and into the bright rays of the sun. We were instantly blinded from being in the darkness of the garage for so long. Therefore we had to sit for a few seconds getting used to the sun fiercely staring at us. After that, we pedaled our new and clean bikes up the long, windy driveway.

            As soon as we saw the thick growth of the thorny blackberry bushes, we roughly stopped in the newly laid gravel. The gravel was like stepping on styrofoam as we forced the rocks into the weak dirt. We eagerly got off our bikes, propping the kickstand so that it would stay up. Since we were in such a rush, we did not even bother to put the bikes back up when the kickstands failed.

            Immediately, we started picking the pitch black berries, avoiding the ones that even had the slightest faint tint of red. My brother and I had to learn to not pick those berries the hard way. “Red berries” were extremely sour and left an annoying aftertaste for hours. However, regular blackberries were soft. A ripe blackberry could be squished with the lightest force. They taste sweet, similar to the taste of blueberries. Blackberries however left an aftertaste. A ripe blackberry’s aftertaste is heaven compared to the aftertaste of a “red berry”. Though they really had no smell, we were attracted to the berries and started eating some.

            Our containers were no match for our dexterous, quick picking hands. The containers were full before we knew it. There were still an abundance of blackberries that needed to be picked. Thinking as if the berries would die if we did not pick them soon, we eagerly raced back to the house. We ignored the easy transportation of the bikes since we had containers full of blackberries. In fact, we ran so fast on the gravel that we were probably going the same speed as being on a bike.

            Bursting into the air – conditioned house, we stood for moments trying to cool and calm down. After we were able to move again under the influence of the cool air, we stepped into the kitchen to drop off the load. To make sure that they were clean before eating, I rinsed the freshly picked blackberries in freezing cold water. To dry them, I softly put the berries on a towel on the counter next to the industrious sink. While I was doing that, my brother was searching through a cabinet for much larger containers. When he found them, we ran outside to gather more blackberries in the noon of the day.