Free stuff

by James K. Sayre

Free wooden pear crates.

Free stuff: some of us never tire of getting things free: I almost always keep my eyes open for our consumer society's vast supply of free discards. Yesterday, when I was in a local produce store, I asked the clerk if he was going to save the wooden pear crate. He said, "no way" and even offered me a second one. They were marked, "Peras Argentinas." Today, curious, I searched the internet for "Peras Argentinas" and was charmed to find a Canadian web site that discussed the very same wooden pear crates from Argentina. In the U. S., you could find wooden cantaloupe crates behind grocery stores about twenty years ago, but now wood is too expensive for U. S. produce shippers to use. Its only cardboard boxes nowadays.

The link to this Canadian site is: Free wooden pear crates discussed .

These "Peras Argentinas" crates are covered with many strange and obscure markings, mostly in green ink: Elegido: CAT.1: 70; Peras de Rio Negro; Industrial Argentina; Allen (R.N.); La Esperanza S. R. L., Amanola. I suppose that if I was fluent in Spanish and lived in Argentina, that all this would be easily understood. A small label says, "Packham's Triumph," which is a variety name.

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This web page was recently created by James Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Copyright 2003 by Bottlebrush Press. All Rights Reserved.

Web page last updated on 18 April 2004.