BEECHNUTS

Ducking under a branch loaded with beechnuts took me back a lot of years to when I was 5, 6  and 7, and I spent large portions of the summer with my Grandma, in Mansfield.  She was legally blind, but she lived by herself across the street from a big park.  I played for hours in the park.  There were towering trees-and I don’t think they seemed tall just because I was small-and deep, green shade.  The German lady who stopped in daily to see if my Grandma needed help with anything introduced me to beechnuts.  There’s a good bit of work involved in the shelling; they are tiny and triangular, but I remember them as a special treat.  An online search brought up comments about their being bitter, but I don’t remember bitterness at all.  What I remember is collecting bucketfuls of the burr-like nuts and going back to Marie’s house where we sat at the kitchen table with her family, opened the nuts and ate them.