Hot Buttered Watermelon

Its Sunday night, day two of Sukkot and by the time we’re ready to head out for the conctert weve got a decent Teva contingency of 9 psyched and ready to head to the Hot Buttered Rum Concert in Woodstock New York. Estimates tell us it will take anywhere from 1 – 2 plus hours to get there; within 20 minutes, we have made a wrong turn on the winding country two lane roads and I already have doubts…

Never mind. We arrive before the bands on stage. As we follow the bends of roads names Zena, and Spackenkill, we wonder how the smoked out hippies ever found their way to Woodstock back in ’69. (without MapQUest, no less)

After a scarfed down bite of Chinese food, (When we asked the woman selling merchandise how much time we had, she responded “enough time to burn one, but I didn’t say that.” )

The venue is a refurbished barn. The bar and lounge out front are pretty swanky, in a way that a designger clearly felt would be “rustic.” But the band is recording the show and there is plenty of room to dance. The ceiling was lined with crepe paper lantern of various sizes and colors. We can get as close as we want to the stage – the room doesn’t feel empty, but the crowd was pretty small. Blue grass fills the air, and I take turns twirling with JD, Tali and Miriam. The songs aren’t ones we know, but they’re all good. We hope the second half will be more upbeat so we can dance even more.

I sit at the bar with Risa and enjoy a gin and tonic. Beside me is the lead singer, guitar player and I am tempted to tell him about the watermelon that Miriam had the brilliant idea of bringing along. (bait, she hopes, to lure the band to Freedman) Hey, if it worked for Baby with Patrick Swayze, I figure my chances can’t be worse. I approach the singer and tell him, frankly, that I carried a watermelon. I’m not sure if he got the reference, but another person standing by us did, so the conversation started naturally.

Suddenly, I found myself excitedly telling him about TEva, about Adamah and about the Jewish holiday of sukkot. How fired up was I? I found myself telling him in all seriousness, “You have to come dwell in our booth! It’s so cool – no need to play for us. We have lots of musicians, you can just sit back and take the night off. And we have veggie oil for your bus.” All pretty much true… and he seems into it. “Outdoor educators are our specialty,” he tells me. And then he asks me to present him with the watermelon on stage. He tells me to wait for the awkward pause and then to go ahead and bring out the watermelon. As far as visiting is concerned, he says that if we email him, they would definitely be interested in coming to Freedman the next time they’re out east.

I run to the car, and return, produce in hand, stopping at the ticket window to inscribe it with a request for my favorite song. Back in the barn, we dance a few tunes with the melon until the combination of peer pressure and a significant pause between songs convinces me it’s time to present my offering. I roll the melon onto stage and it lands perfectly at the singer’s feet. In one movement, he picks up the still-rolling melonandsends a shout out to our farm. Then, he says the melon will be enjoying the rest of the show from center stage. (We are all invited to partake after the show!)

At one point during the show, I yell out Adamah and another one of the band members comes out to pat the melon. And then, as the show is ending, I feel tingles when they tell us that the encore will be acoustic in the audience. They send off the watermelon to be cut, and then serenade the audience, now gathered, sitting at their feet. They play my request, in spite of the fact that I’d done a shoddy job writing on the rind. I am elated, and enjoy the sweetness of this particular fruit, not so much in the one bite that I get, but in the looks of the faces of the audience and the band as they enjoy the flesh, seeds dropping, juice dribbling, and beside me, four farmers proudly, modesty glowing in the simple reward of patience and hard hard work.