Walnut Trees and The Pomegranate Grove

Memories of a Valley Boy

Between the ages of 7 to 12 I grew up in Walnut Cove. It was a well established San Fernando Valley subdivision of ranch-style houses with wide sidewalks and big front yards. There was a mature walnut tree in front of every house. The trees were the survivors of a grove bulldozed to feed the 1950’s building boom. The Black and English Walnuts were grafted giving the trees solid roots, and the best walnuts. The big branched trees were great for climbing.

The neighborhood nut trees sprouted green speckled pods every spring. The heat and light of a valley summer would darken and shrivel the walnut skin into brittle black leather exposing the ridges, grooves and crevices of the light brown shell.

All my neighborhood pals, Dave DeCamp, Judy and Sharon Corn, David Olsen, Bobby Bear and even weird Reynolds would gather bags full! Then we had a feast. We'd crack the shells. There were nuts too soft to eat. You might discover a mummy wrapped in fungus and spider webs. But mostly the light brown nut split like two halves of a brain. You ate them one lobe at a time. Tangy and crisp, the nuts crunched like earthy candy. In the late spring and early summer, you could always find a snack.  

Our neighborhood was bordered by Balboa Boulevard and Nordhoff Street, major commuter roads with fast-moving traffic. Crossing the dangerous streets was forbidden. The valley was quickly filling with new housing tracks. But Walnut Cove was still surrounded by orchards. There were oranges to the north, acres of pomegranates to the south, and walnuts to the east. But the land west of Balboa had just been scraped into treeless lots. Soon the framing crews would arrive and the bangs of hammers and whine of power saws would start early in the morning.

We could hike into the orange groves without crossing the big streets. The oranges were usually small, green, and bitter. The farmers hated kids and were always yelling threats and chasing us out. The pomegranate groves on the other side of Nordhoff Blvd were in the forbidden zone, mysterious, remote, and irresistible.

Even though I wasn't supposed to cross the street, I planned a raid on the pomegranates with Judy Corn. Judy lived down the block. She was the youngest daughter of a Jack Mormon clan that had no trouble playing cards and drinking coffee.

I'd go to Judy's house to watch American Bandstand with Dave DeCamp and Judy's older sister Sharon. I was the youngest in the group and always got fidgety waiting for the program to end so we could go out and play. The older kids, especially Sharon and Dave, who must have been at least 13, were fascinated by the dancing couples on the screen. It was boring for me, but neat to be included with the older kids. Judy was bored too, but she wouldn't admit that around her big sister. 

Judy was a hot-tempered straw-blond tomboy and one of the toughest kids on the block. I fought her once, and she won. Judy hit me ten times as I struggled to wrestle her arms down. She was hard to hold. Her muscles were as big as mine. I told myself I held back during the fight because she was a girl. You weren't supposed to hit girls. But she punched harder than any boy in the neighborhood except Arty Guftason, the worst bully on the block. I liked Judy, but I was afraid of her. Her punches really hurt.

Judy wasn't supposed to cross Nordoff Street either, but she dared me, and I couldn't back down from a dare. Besides, I wanted to get some pomegranates. We waited a long time for a break in the traffic, then sprinted across the street, through the gully and ran up to the barb wire fence blocking the way to the forbidden grove. A faded no-trespassing sign hung on the wire fence. I felt like we were going to get caught by a farmer faster and meaner than the guys at the orange grove.  

I pulled up the wire and Judy wiggled under. I followed and got bitten by a barb that tore my blue jeans. We ran to get away from the road, disappearing into the mysteries of a banned place. The traffic noise faded. The trees were planted in rows, a tractor-width apart. The leaves created a canopy that cooled the air. It was shady and secret here. Dust drifted, suspended in shafts of sunlight. It was quiet and we were alone.

There was a cloying scent of decay. Pomegranates like purple-red wasp nests, hung heavy in the burdened branches. Some had fallen to the ground, split and lay half-hidden in the tall grass. Ants swarmed over blood-colored clusters of bleeding seeds.

We skipped past the armies of ants, on through the buzzing trees. The skin color tells you which pomegranates are ready to be eaten. A pale purple baseball-sized pomegranate wasn't ready yet. We wanted the dimple textured fruit, bigger than your hand; the ones with a glossy sheen, ready to burst with scarlet seeds and sweet juice.

Judy and I jumped up to steal the fruit, snatching them from the low limbs. But the best ones were out of reach. These trees were hard to climb, none of the branches are low enough. I made a cradle with my hands to boost Judy into the tree. She was surprisingly heavy. Her first step hurt my hands. Her knees brushed my face. Pushing off from my shoulders, Judy grabbed a limb and climbed out of reach. Laughing, she bombed my head with a fat pomegranate. I chucked back rotten, ground-softened, ant-covered missiles but couldn’t hit her. I looked up and got hit with a good one on the nose.

Eventually, we called a truce. Judy came down. Time stopped as we lay in the grass; peeling back the fibrous skin, devouring the tart scarlet seeds, biting into massive clusters, chewing the pulp, and swallowing the juice. It was exciting to spend time with a girl, even if she was a tomboy. We stacked the pomegranates like pyramids of lumpy cannon balls on a fruit-littered battlefield. We ate, talked, and played in the special secret place. The crimson drippings stained our t-shirts. We ate only the thickest seed clusters, tossing the half-eaten carcasses aside.

We ruined more pomegranates than we ate. We were surrounded by split, smashed, and broken remains. When I looked at the empty husks and wasted fruit, I felt uneasy. If the farmer caught us now, he'd be furious.

The sky darkened. The shadows grew. It was too late to be getting home. We used a fine place poorly. We made a hopeless mess. Turning away, we ran from the grove. When we cleared the barb-wire I said goodbye to Judy.

I felt ashamed.

I came slinking into the house. My conscience throbbed. I disobeyed, crossed the street, thieved the pomegranates and wasted as much as I'd eaten. My face and hands were stained in juice and guilt. 

Mom was waiting. She took one look at me and knew something was wrong. My furtive slump-shouldered skulk towards my room tipped her off.

"Dennis, what is it?" 

I had to confess. "I, uh, I ... crossed the street ... took pomegranates... stole them, I guess."

The story tumbled out, sneaking away with Judy, tearing my jeans, wasting the farmer's pomegranates.

Surprisingly, Mom wasn't upset. Instead, she had a slight smile on her face as she nodded and warned me not to cross the dangerous street again.

I didn’t go back to the pomegranate grove.

I never took another of the farmer's pomegranates.

I'd lost my taste for pomegranates.