The Candy Tree

Money doesn’t grow on trees…but candy sure does. Now I’ll be the first to admit that’s a bold statement, and sometimes I can be prone to exaggerations when it comes to a story – poetic license if you will – but not this time. Candy really does grow on trees. You just have to know what time of year to look for it and, of course, from what tree. 

Still not a believer? 

Sit back, Dear Reader, for this is one sweet story that just keeps giving – a story that has its beginning a long, long time ago in the back yard of a house located on that old familiar street not so far away called Flamingo.

At the bottom of our back yard, where the land bellied out and was swallowed by the swamp water, stood two massive trees. I knew two things about these trees. First, their dark green, leather-like leaves were bigger than Dad’s head. And second, they were the only ones we were never allowed to climb. The year I turned six I learned a third thing – those twin trees in our back yard standing at the edge of the swamp made candy for almost three months every year.

Just after breakfast early one Saturday morning in mid-June, Dad handed me a bucket and said, “Let’s go pick some candy.” Eagerly I followed him to the back yard and down to the bottom of the hill before stopping, he said, “These are fig trees. It’s time to start picking.” 

“What’s a fig?”

“Thought you’d ask that,” he replied, then reached up and picked something off a limb. “Here you go. Eat this. Tastes like candy.” About the size of a golf ball, the brownish sphere didn’t look like any candy I’d ever seen before, but Dad was persistent, “Go ahead, you’ll love it.”

Love at first bite.

That first bite started a love affair that has now lasted for over half a century. Every summer we spent living on Flamingo, I helped Dad pick figs off those two trees. And each day, when I thought I’d gotten the very last one, Dad would smile and say, “Check again under each leaf. Figs are shy; they like to hide.” And he was always right. I’d pick an extra bucket or two. 

The fig-picking season usually started around the third week in June and lasted well into August. It was the only time he allowed anybody to climb the trees, and that anybody was always me. With three waves of fruit each season, by the end Dad and I picked almost twenty gallons. We picked ‘em, and Mom canned ‘em. The “candy fruit” lasted all year.

That was then, this is now.

About twenty-five years ago, Dad came for a visit and brought with him a housewarming gift. I helped him plant the two “Brown Turkey” fig trees where they would get full sun at the bottom of a hill at end of our driveway. Unfortunately, I lost one of the trees the second year and thought I would have to plant another. 

Dad said, “You can have figs with only one tree.”

“But I always thought you needed two.” 

He laughed, “Nope, just always had two ‘cause I like ‘em so much.” For the next twenty years until he passed, whenever we visited him in Florida, we’d bring him a jar or two of figs. 

The fig doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Last week when our two granddaughters, Little One and Sweet Caroline, came over, I asked them to help me pick some candy from our tree. With buckets in hand, the Girly Girls followed me out to the lone fig tree now towering some twenty feet over the end of the driveway. 

Both agreed, “Papa, that’s not a candy tree.” 

I lifted a green leaf bigger than my head, pulled off two brownish, golf ball-sized spheres and handed one to each of the girls. “Here, take a bite. Tastes just like candy.” Their reaction brought me back to those two trees in our back yard on Flamingo.

“Papa, it does taste like candy!”

“This is so good!”

“What is it?”

“Can we have another?”

I smiled and said, “Yes it does. It’s a fig. Of course, you can have as many as you want, but first we need to fill those buckets.” 

Half an hour later, the girls showed me their full buckets and pronounced, “We picked them all, Papa.”

Sitting down with the Girly Girls, we enjoyed some of their labor for a much-deserved snack. Then I asked, “Did you look under the leaves? You know figs are really shy. They like to hide.”

The Girly Girls disagreed, confident they had gotten all of them and added, “Figs aren’t shy, Papa. They don’t hide.”

I smiled, “No? Let’s go have a looksee.” We picked another bucketful.

Whenever I gaze at the end of our driveway and see our massive fig tree, I remember back to that day my dad and I planted his housewarming gift together. And starting the third week in June and lasting all the way to the end of August, I hear my Dad’s voice each morning when I think I’ve picked all the figs.

“Check again under each leaf. Figs are shy; they like to hide.” 

I look under those dark green, leather-like leaves, find more…and smile. Thanks, Dad, for the childhood memory and the housewarming gift that just keeps giving.