Branches and Rain: Watermelon Festival

A woman called from Vero Beach. An old friend of hers was being elevated to a judgeship. They had grown up in Tallahassee, and she thought that a photograph of him as a baby with watermelons had appeared in the local newspaper in 1960 during a watermelon festival. The newspaper offices had referred her to the library. Could I look for it? I found a couple of photographs of the Monticello Watermelon Festival in July of that year on microfilm, but not the one she wanted.

When I used to drive the library bookmobile to the village of Miccosukee, near the Jefferson County line, (of which Monticello is the county seat), I used to hear talk of how the watermelon crop was doing. There were melon fields close by where I parked.

I have a bright memory of a summer day when I was five in Pinecastle, south of Orlando, swimming in a lake and eating watermelon with my friends. Most people didn't have A/C, and a swim and crisp slices of watermelon gave us real relief from the heat. The sweet, sticky juice ran down our faces, hands and tummies, and we rinsed ourselves in the lake.

In Florida, with its enormous coastline, seafood festivals vastly outnumber all other food festivals. Yet, according to the National Watermelon Promotion Board, Florida has more watermelon festivals than any other state: six! Here are some photos from Florida Memory of the Monticello festival in days of yore, plus a few others.