The Pear Tree

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Source: Betty Jane Petrilla

For a time Ed and Al, the youngest sons of Joseph and Anna Timko, both worked at a local fruit market on Market Street. It was located in what is now the west parking lot of the landmark Warren eatery, the Hot Dog Shoppe. At the end of their shift, the market owner would let the boys take home any overripe fruit. Their mother Anna could always find a use for anything they brought home. One person’s overripe fruit might become another person’s desert for the evening meal.

However, not all of Ed and Al’s motive were pure of heart. Sometimes they put that proverbial toe over the line. On one occasion, Ed and Al, who were in their early teens at the time, were playing in the back yard near a pear tree. Ed’s father, my Dzedo, had warned the boys, as well as the other children, not to pick the pears off the tree. Dzedo wanted to wait until the pears were really ripe. The boys knew that disobeying their father meant certain punishment but the boys couldn’t resist the temptation of the ripe pears just hanging there before their eyes. I suppose, in what they thought was stroke of genius, one of them came up with an idea to get what they wanted but not disobey their father. Ed and Al took turns holding the pears still will the other ate the flesh from the pear while it was still attached to the tree.

When Dzedo discovered what the boys had done, he of course wanted to punish both of the boys. However, in a rare switch of their roles as the disciplinarian, Baba said no. I can only guess she was amused or impressed by their creativeness. She told her husband he really couldn’t punish them because, after all, they hadn’t picked the pears.