Lela and Maurice Mortimer with giant watermelons
It's the season for big watermelons.
Yes, it's the season for big fruits.
Every year about now, newspapers across the nation
are besieged with calls from people who have enormous
plants just waiting to have their pictures taken.
It's a harbinger of fall and a flashback to the days
when newspapers cared more about the size of things than
their importance.
The Janesville Gazette got besieged by two such calls
in the past few weeks-one from a watermelon watcher the
other from a pumpkin picker.
The watermelon watcher, Maurice Mortimer of County F.
is the proud grower of two larger-than-life specimens.
"There must be watermelons bigger, but I haven't seen
any." he said, his foot leaning against a gourd-filled
wheelbarrow.
The watermelons weighed in at 45 pounds each and until
recently were residing in a wheelbarrow next to the to
the gourd-filled one.
They measured 22 inches ling. The largest one had a
circumference of 34 inches.
So, what do you do with two 45-pound watermelons
besides stare at them?
One of them has already gone the route of the other
plant life raised by Mortimer and his wife Lela. Like
the squash, tomatoes and potatoes they grow, one of
Mortimer's watermelons has been eaten.
The other one remains just for the looking.
At the moment at least it's better as food for
thought than just plain food.
To the Mortimer Photo Index Page.
It's the season for The Great Pumpkin.