The date tree in front of my hometown
Author: Wen Xiangbin Chief of the Legal Propaganda Section of the Traffic Police Brigade of the Mian County Public Security Bureau
There is a date tree in front of my hometown, which has been burned in my memories since childhood.
It has been more than forty years since I left my hometown, and I have not returned to my hometown for many years.
One Sunday before the Qingming Dynasty this year, he was entrusted by his father to return to his hometown to go to the grave. My father is ninety-one years old this year, he is sick and has limited mobility, and he has been instructed to let his children return to their hometown before the Qingming Dynasty, to call our grandparents who have never seen before, and to go to the graves of our father's grandparents.
The hometown is deep in the Bashan Mountains, driving from the county seat, all the way to the south of more than 20 kilometers, and have to walk a few kilometers up the mountain road to the village. In recent years, rural development has been fast and convenient, cement roads have been repaired to the middle of the mountainside, and cars can be driven to the mountain beams behind the old houses. There is a ditch on both the east and west sides of the mountain beam, in the topography is actually a canyon, the people in the mountains are used to call the ditch, the west side is called the small ditch, the east side is called the big ditch, the hometown is in the big ditch, like the simple country people, is a very rustic name.
I left my hometown when I was very young and moved into the so-called city, where the original small adobe house and the trees behind the front house were long gone. Maybe it is too much thought, or maybe it touches the scenery, and the childhood time still vaguely appears in front of you - when I was a child, there were many fruit trees planted in front of and behind the house of my hometown, there were plum trees, apricot trees, peach trees, etc., but the deepest impression was a date tree.
At that time, it was the era of large collectives, and the production teams relied on earning work, living conditions were very poor, and materials were very scarce. My father worked outside the home, we had five sisters, two older brothers, two older sisters, and I was the youngest in the family, and only my mother earned her share. Whenever the production team was divided into grain, it could only receive the miscellaneous grains that they were afraid of. When we were young, our stomachs were always hungry, so under the fruit tree was the happy home of our childhood, and the fruit was naturally our "rare thing". In the poor years, there is a lack of food and clothing, and adults will carefully take care of the fruit that is about to ripen to prevent it from being stolen. The jujube tree under the dam in front of the courtyard of my hometown has also become the key protection object of my family.
The jujube tree, a deciduous tree with a tall canopy that grows mostly in remote mountainous areas, sprouts in the spring, bears fruit in the summer, and matures in the fall. Dates are not dates, and the fruit is ugly in shape. Every ripening season, in the branches grow chopsticks thick and roundabout rod-like brown-gray stems, like chicken feet, and not like chicken feet, crooked, that is the fruit of the dates.
Both the name and the appearance are strange and ugly, as rustic as the hometown place name Dagou. However, the taste of the dates is particularly sweet, put in the mouth, gently chewed, not sour or astringent, a pure sweetness. If you wait until after the frost falls, the ripe dates have been beaten by the frost, it is even more sweet. Perhaps because of the refreshing taste, when you slowly taste it, you forget its ugly appearance, which can be described as a sweet and ugly. Autumn is the season of harvest. The dates are ripe, we are happy to blossom in our hearts, our brothers and sisters rush to pick the dates, the short ones can be picked, the taller ones have to stand on the edge of the courtyard dam, drag the branches over to pick, and the taller ones can only use bamboo poles, which is the experience taught by parents.
We find a long bamboo pole, tie a bamboo clip with a thin rope at the top of the bamboo pole, extend the bamboo pole to the treetops, and hold the jujube branch to turn the bamboo pole to pluck the jujube. We smelled hungry, couldn't wait, each of them divided a handful, wolfed, happy like the New Year, the heart is sweeter than the secret. There is also an unforgettable memory of picking dates.
Once, we picked the dates in the low place, the brothers and sisters stood on the edge of the courtyard dam, pulling the branches in the distance hard, I was still young, but I could not be idle, so I grabbed the pulled branches with both hands with them, and then, the brothers and sisters began to pick, but when they finished picking and loosening the branches in their hands, they forgot that I was still holding the branches around me to help, just like the "Angry Birds" in the game, I was bounced up by the branches and fell into the nettle bushes under the trees.
Nettle is a thorny poisonous plant, especially in the mountainous countryside is more common, palm-sized jagged leaves, finger-thick branches, branches and leaves are covered with tiny needle-like burrs, if you accidentally encounter nettle is stinged, the light skin will be poisoned red and swollen, it takes several days to dissipate, and the heavy skin may fester. The nettles under my family's jujube tree are half a person tall, and the clusters grow very luxuriantly. The brothers were frightened, and quickly took a wooden stick to pull the nettle bush away and rescued me.
Although he did not fall, his bare body was stung by burrs, and his hands and arms and face were stung red and swollen. At that time, there was no anti-inflammatory potion, and my mother disinfected me with salt water, and it took many days to gradually reduce the swelling. On the days of being stung by nettles, my brothers and sisters circled around me every day, disinfecting and bandaging the wounds, just like the date tree that was "protected".
That deep warmth is far sweeter than the dates. In fact, in addition to eating dates, there are also rich fructose, which can be boiled sugar, and can also be brewed and made into jujube wine. Branches, stems and leaves, fruits contain a variety of vitamins, can be used in medicine, used for cooling diuresis, detoxification, fever thirst, drunkenness, thirst, fever and other symptoms, is a good Chinese herbal medicine, can not help but sigh, although the jujube is rustic, it is full of treasure.
Time flies, and the years fly by. Not long after, we moved to my grandfather's house more than ten kilometers away from our hometown. Leaving the mountainous area of our hometown, from the mountains to Pingchuan, the living conditions gradually improved, and we moved to the county seat again. At this time, we gradually grew up, went out to study, and then joined the work, brothers and sisters had their own small families, and the children reached the age of starting a family.
Life in the city is naturally superior, what to eat, occasionally, buy some dates in the market, or have relatives send some dates, although chewing slowly, but how can not eat the past "original taste".
Sometimes I think that the shape of the jujube looks ugly, and the name and the big ditch are just as rustic, but in real life, it is more innocent, simple and natural.
Therefore, those dates that have not been picked by themselves lack the sunshine and rain dew of their hometown, perhaps there is a kind of affection in it.
Returning from our hometown grave, we went to visit our father, who was sick and moaning. A large family of people get together, like many people around us, talk about life, talk about children, talk about family, talk about running around for work and livelihood, dutifully take care of elderly parents, rack their brains for children's work, in short, human feelings and sophistication are complex and realistic, and the body that has deleted family affection has no skin...
Suddenly, the second sister did not know where to take a large handful of dates to greet us to taste, a nostalgic emotion spontaneously emerged, seeing things and feelings, and her heart was suddenly open. I picked a date and put it in my mouth, chewed it gently, and suddenly a sweet smell poured into my heart and spleen, as if I had gone from childhood through the years to today, under the pressure of real life, there was a kind of happiness and sweetness in silent companionship.
An emotion, innate, a life, though bland, as sweet as a date, and it takes a lifetime to taste slowly, because it is truly a pleasure.
Source: Mian County Public Security