Ever see red blueberries? Helping my oldest son clear a natural area at his home in northern Virginia last spring, I stopped short of some delicate bushes on the perimeter.
“You’ve got wild blueberries growing here,” I told him and planned to return this summer to put the fruit on some pancakes.
The berries are finally ripe. Last week I returned for breakfast, but the fruit on the bushes is decidedly red.
I popped a few in my mouth and quickly wished I hadn’t.
They seem to be wild chokeberries. Aptly named. My pancakes were served plain.

‘Gone With The Wind’
Was The ‘Harry Potter’
Of Pre-World War II Era

Competition is an amazing force. It can drive someone to … read the 1,037-page “Gone With The Wind.” Third son Michael, as the end of the school year approached, found himself in second place in the middle school reading program. With a few days left in the competition, he asked me to check out the weighty Margaret Mitchell classic from the Davie County Library. GWTW, worth a hefty 71 points in the Accelerated Reading program, would have boosted him to first place.
GWTW takes more than two days to read, however. He had to settle for second. A month and plenty of overdue fines later, he has finished, giving me a running commentary as he made it through the chapters …