Shade Tree Wisdom 7/23/13

Shade Tree Wisdom 7/23/13


Golfer Phil Mickelson won the British Open played at Muirfield in Scotland last weekend. He started the day five strokes back, and won by 3 strokes. Many watched the match and were probably glad for him.

There was another match recently. This one at Eau Claire, Michigan. Attended by maybe 200 people, some from overseas and one contestant came all the way from California. And what was that? You might well ask. It was the annual cherry-pit spitting contest. Yes, there is such an event.

One rainy afternoon in the 70’s Herb Teichman, who owned a fruit farm 100 miles northeast of Chicago, and was trying to find a way to lure people to his farm to make it a self-picking operation. It was a rainy day, and he and some children were in the barn, waiting out a rain storm. Mr. Teichman drew a line in the dirt and challenged the children to a cherry spitting contest, and suddenly the idea sprouted. Why not make this an annual event, and on July of 1974, he hosted the first contest.

Word spread. Mr. Teichman met with other cherry growers and they drew up a set of rules. The official pit must come from a Montmorency cherry. Each competitor gets 3 tries, with a minute in between to eat the fruit off the pit. For every inch over 4 feet the competitor stands, he must move back 2 inches from the line to make it even.

An early competitor was a young gym teacher who worked summers for Mr. Teichman, Rick Krause. In 1980 Mr. Krause spat a pit 65 feet 2 inches and claimed his first title. For the next several decades, he and his son, Brian, won. They were beaten once by a Canadian. Last year Ronn Matt from Chicago rocked the cherry pit spitting world with a pit going 69 feet. But this year the champion belt was back in Krause hands. Mr. Matt mustered only 33 feet.There were a total of nearly 200 spitters in this year’s contest.

By the way, there are organized competitions in Germany, Switzerland, and Canada.

I do not believe this event will ever reach TV. But you know there is such an event. And as long as there are cherry trees ad children picking them, there will be pit spitting.

GPD 7/23/13