Fruitcake Chronicles
I’m looking for a fruitcake to arrive in the mail.
Not just any fruitcake–it has to be one from the Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas.
This fruitcake has lots of memories for me. To begin with, when I was in band (5th grade through senior year) in school, we sold these fruitcakes every year as a fundraiser. As far as I can tell, the sales financed our trip to Hemisfair in San Antonio my junior year in high school. (Who thought taking 200+ high school kids to San Antonio in the summer on school buses was a good idea? I remember melting in my wool uniform slacks and our chairs sinking into the asphalt.) It may have also financed some of our weekly trips to out of town football games and various contests. I don’t remember selling them to anyone other than my mother who loved them.
Fast-forward 30 years or so, my husband and I are driving my parents home from what proved to be my mom’s final visit to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. We sail through Corsicana and Mom starts waxing eloquent about the fruitcakes. Hubbo turns around and we go back to Corsicana to buy a fruitcake. Mom, of course, says we shouldn’t and that just because she thinks one sounds good doesn’t mean that she can eat it what with all the chemo. But she digs into it and sure enough, a bite or two satisfies her. Six weeks later, she is gone, but the fruitcake stays in my freezer for 2 years. When the fog lifts, I finally gather up the courage to discard it, blue tin and all.
The next year, someone from our church sends us one in the mail. My sons start their “ewwwww, fruitcake” spiel, but I am comforted by the site of the tin and all the pecans and sugary fruit and memories inside.
I’m still waiting.