Just Eat It: Part II

In Just Eat It: Part I, I wrote that you could find wild fruit in any nearby vacant lot. In retrospect, I felt that I exaggerated and decided to post an apology saying so. Until I realized just how correct I was.

I wrote that post from hell, also known as a Ramada off the the US-46E Service Road in Wayne, NJ. It's a never ending sea of strip malls with fierce, cacophonous traffic twenty four-seven. If you miss your exit, you have to go miles before you can find a break in the dividing wall that will let you turn around. It is a place which looks as though it can sustain no life besides Dunkin' Donut-Baskin Robbins mergers, and is generally of the many human deserts that will be our legacy on this formerly green planet.

So you can imagine my surprise when, in the parking lot of the hotel, my traveling companions caught a whiff of what they thought was grape juice. The source proved to be fat, ripe, wild concord grapes trailing over the fence at the back of the lot. And what were they growing on? An elderberry bush. There in the harsh flood lights of the adjacent late night putt-putt and driving range, we feasted on wild fruit as the cars blazed by.