750 Miles for a Peach

How for would you go to get the best peach available? 

As best as I can remember, I was in college before I heard about Georgia peaches.  The word was that if you wanted to taste a really good peach, you needed fresh peaches from Georgia.  I was determined to have a Georgia peach.  When some years later, I finally got the opportunity, I was disappointed.  It wasn't a bad peach; it just wasn't a great peach.  Why, I thought, I had tasted better peaches back home.

I just got back from a 750-mile round trip to secure the best peaches to be found anywhere!  I did not go to Georgia.  I drove to the southeast corner of Missouri (The Bootheel) to an orchard near Campbell, Missouri--about 17 miles from where I grew up.  Was it worth 13 hours on the road and a hundred dollars in gasoline?  Let me answer in this way.  I will be doing it again next summer.

I thought back to those years long ago when I heard about the peaches down in Georgia.  I couldn't wait to get some; yet, all along, the best peaches were right there in my backyard--well, almost.  How often have we yearned for what was just beyond the horizon or just over the hill when the best was all around us?

Biting into that first peach of the season, having my tastebuds come awake, and feeling the juice run from the corners of my mouth into my beard . . . Ah, it is a call to thanksgiving.  What would the world be like had God not created peaches?

By the way, there was once a peach in Tennessee.  I married her and that, too, is a call to thanksgiving.