On Sundays, we’d go around 4:30 just before closing time. Searching for boxes of mangoes, strawberries, and blueberries. Walking past the fish and clams. Through the stalls of lettuce, cucumbers, spinach and tomatoes. Fragrances of freshly picked apricots, citrusy lemons, and aromas of sweet corns and earthy potatoes.

Late afternoon was the best time to go. When the fruit sellers started packing up their boxes for the day. Ready to make a deal before heading home. Flattened cardboard boxes lined the streets, strewn with corn husks, and broken crates, and paper bags.

People milled about seeing what remained. Cantankerous fruit sellers and patrons from Chinatown exchanged words with fierce looks.

“Don’t touch the fruits! You touch it, you buy it!” yelled the man at the elderly woman holding up a fruit for inspection.

Sign me up for team fruit touchers, how can we resist?

Meli and I would wander over from our apartment in the North End, Little Italy, on the fourth floor walk up. Prince Street. Around the corner from the famous Mike’s Pastry and those gorgeous pistachio cookies, and scrumptious Cannolies - with chocolate chips. Locals, and temporary locals like us, favored Cannolis from Modern, down Hanover Street.

Giacamo’s was our favorite restaurant. Standing in line outside to score one of the eight tables or so, and seafood pasta with homemade noodles. “You want coffee and dessert with that?” “Go across the street to Mike’s, we got people waiting for this table,” the waitress proclaimed.

That year in Boston was like one long honeymoon. Romantic dinners, exploring the city - and each other. Swirl of parades, and Italian Festival, seen from our window above Prince Street. City sounds for accompaniment. We had a few friends living in Boston, and one attending Harvard. Damn, those Harvard parties were boring, shhhh, don’t tell, with talks of Chemistry and cranial one upsmanship.

Young and married; life was fun and full of adventures, big and small. Sunsets and sunrises, holding hands, and dancing under the stars. Sometimes we would be the stars. Creating our own universe, lighting up the night together.

That photo of you is burned in my mind. Walking through the arched brick tunnel entrance out of our apartment on 58 Prince Street. Flashing your brilliant, sparkling, over the shoulder smile at me. Red shirt, and blue jeans shorts, cut high on your tanned thighs. Your brilliance has never faded, My Love.

I pick up a mango 🥭 from the cardboard box and hold it in the palm of my hand. This mango is cool, and smooth, green with a touch of red, and a brush of yellow. Almost ripened, but too hard to eat. When it’s softened enough, we’ll slice it up, smell the fruit peels, and taste the juices.

“Don’t touch my fruits” the purveyor yells at me in his thick Boston accent. Lord of produce. I smile, refusing to take the bait, and he gets angrier.

“Let’s have the whole box, and we’ll see you again next week.” He grumbles and we make the exchange of currency and mangoes.

Time to leave the hustle and bustle, walking home to our apartment, with boxes in hand. Carrying our strawberries, blueberries, and mangoes. Enjoying the never ending now .