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December 24, 2001

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* Pomegranate *
When I was six years old my family lived in Waco, Texas. My cousin and I had found some very strange fruit growing in a tree at the end of the block. We didn't know what they were but we picked some, broke them open on the sidewalk and took them home. They were amazing looking with all the tiny, bright red fruit inside that looked like brilliant little rubies. We then discovered that they were quite delicious so we hid and ate them. My sister found us and told on us in fear that we may have poisoned ourselves. My mother went down the street to the neighbor's and found out that they came from a Pomegranate tree. The pomegranate is one of my favorite fruits.

* Reference from Encyclopedia Britannica:
Fruit of Punica granatum, a bush or small tree of Asia, which with a little-known species from the island of Socotra constitutes the family Punicaceae. Native to Iran and long cultivated around the Mediterranean and in India, it also grows in the warmer parts of the New World. The orange-sized and obscurely six-sided fruit has smooth, leathery, brownish-yellow to red skin. Several chambers contain many thin, transparent vesicles of reddish, juicy pulp, each containing an angular, elongated seed. The fruit is eaten fresh, and the juice is the source of the grenadine syrup used in flavorings and liqueurs. The plant grows 16-23 ft (5-7 m) tall and has elliptical, bright-green leaves and handsome orange-red flowers. Throughout the Orient, the pomegranate has since earliest times occupied a position of importance alongside the grape and the fig.

According to the Bible, King Solomon possessed an orchard of pomegranates, and, when the children of Israel, wandering in the wilderness, sighed for the abandoned comforts of Egypt, the cooling pomegranates were remembered longingly. Centuries later, the prophet Muhammad remarked, 
"Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred."

* Have a Merry Christmas *