This is why I like having family fact checkers. After a friend recently gave me a grapefruit, I simply remembered that my mother used to love that fruit. When I called my brother, he was able to add, “Yep. That’s right. She used to gum ‘em.”
You see she had false teeth that she only wore for school meetings or doctor visits. At home there was no need for pretense. Gum the fruit, she may have, but she also had lovely serrated spoons made special for scooping out grapefruit pulp. According to my brother, the whole family ate the sour fruit and with lots and lots of sugar. He said that he and I shared a single fruit. When most of the pulp was gone, we would try to squeeze the last remnants of juice into a glass.
“So we shared?” I said with a smile. He agreed, and then added, “Unless you made me mad. Then I’d put dogfood in the glass.” It’s those little details … 
