Strawberry Season

In the full of the field of ripened Sweet Charlies I kissed her.

Pick-your-own strawberry season in Hampton Roads is a short, lip sweet happening. We’ve driven south from our home to a region called Pungo. The small farm crooked squares a corner crossroads lot. Parking on dirt. A classic roadside shack front.

Pungo isn’t a zip-code, this is still Virginia Beach. Like every nook of people in the area, the division of culture is clearly marked. This was a place of small farms. Family farms. And springtime in Pungo has always meant strawberries.

We’ve had our little white baskets for all the years we’ve been together. Got them at this very place for our first small harvest shared. The greeting teen may have been born that season. Her kin pulling canvas from molded crate edges, tells a sad tale of the Chandlers being ungiving. No reasons. Nature’s way. But the Charlies, the oh so Sweet Charlies are offering plenty.

This was our usual field. Hard tilled rows. Muddy ruts between. The land felt moody. Long viridescent. Fatigued. Yet still, this green stands strong vining an amount of strawberries we haven’t seen since before the COVID shutdowns.

The picking brings comforting quiescence. It’s a mindful process. Remaining alert not to bucket the spiders and bees. The shallow splash of our boots in mud from last night’s rains. The repeated gentle thieving of ruby jewels from vines in coaxing fingers. The snap of the moment when finders become keepers. And the knowing of how we are keepers for such a short time. A precious time.

We work in silence. But it is not silent. Though the blue jays voice over a young mockingbird’s chattering repertoire and the early morning wind whispers through the leafy rows, there is no escaping the dominant sounds coming from the road.

The traffic noise isn’t from passing tractors or dented body pick-up trucks. It’s an endless parade of Escalades and Land Rovers and Oversized Wranglers. Clean hands driving all. On their way to the down the street Starbucks for lavender lattes and bringing back takeout to eat in designer kitchens. Pungo is a suburb. White wealth. Shouldered Glocks. Strip malls. The families aren't from here. Anymore.

Back in the day, as they say, there were dozens of u-pick places. Everyone had their favorite and their favorite was the best place, and no need to argue any points about your place being the best place, for when you told someone where you picked, you immediately heard the truth about where you should have picked. And there was a festival. A festival for just the strawberry. A gathering that closed the roads. For decades. Folks celebrated what a land could give and what a people could give to the land.

We are alone in the field. It's a beautiful morning. A perfect morning. The height of Spring. And we are alone. There’s only a couple of u-pick places left, and we’re standing in one of them. This place was five fields, and now it’s three, and one of them isn’t giving. And still there are enough strawberries for hundreds of people.

Our baskets fill with a beautiful bounty. Our plenty will be enough for our season's cobblers and shortcakes, with more being frozen to enjoy through the coming summer. And it’s impossible not to pull one more and let it melt on your lips and just stand there in the sun dripping in the overwhelm of sweet.

And it all feels so fleeting. So on the edge of an end. Near lost and never coming back. I felt a thrill for the moment. Felt powerless and sad for the context. A little ashamed for my times. And I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

In the full of the field of ripened Sweet Charlies I kissed her.

1. Cover photo by Author. In Pungo, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

2. Sweet Charlies. Photo by Author.

© Copyright William Hazel, 2025