Picking Blueberries with James

My grandson loves tart berries and drove our Tesla like a champ

A long, lean blueberry-picking machine at Libby & Son U-Picks in Limerick, Maine

To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:

The Joy of Just Doing Stuff

My grandson James is 18 and wicked smart. He and I share an interest in politics. Sometimes I think the best way to connect with him is to talk about Gaza, Elon Musk, or (yesterday) whether Pete Buttigieg has a shot at becoming Kamala Harris’s running mate.

We don’t agree on everything, especially when it comes to my guy Elon. But our conversations are always lively, challenging, and (for Grampa) enlightening.

Darlene thinks these conversations are boring and pointless. My words, not hers. She’s always had a connection with James that I envied—how natural he seems with her, just doing stuff, without the intellectual jousting.

It’s evidence of James’s connection with my wife that he eagerly accepted her invitation to go blueberry picking at Libby & Son U-Picks in Limerick. In fact, he slept in his Mazda when he got home at 3 a.m. after DoorDashing in Portland and asked us to knock on the car window to wake him up when we got there at 7:15. He didn’t want to miss a trip to the blueberry patch.

Darlene has taught me how to love blueberry picking, too.

When you arrive at Libby U-Picks, you buy an empty box or two and take white plastic buckets to drop the berries in. You ride in a golf cart to the bushes, which gives you time to decide which kind of blueberries you will pick. I had no idea there were so many different kinds. Dukes, Polaris, Early Blue, Spartan, and Patriots were ready for picking yesterday.

We opted for Patriots, because they have a tangy, tart flavor mixed in with the sweetness.

It’s early in the season, but the blueberries were everywhere. It’s fun to lie on the ground and reach up for a handful. It’s as if they jump into the bucket as soon as you get near them.

Of course we ate almost as many as we picked. But we were still hungry for brunch when our two boxes were full.

As we prepared to leave the Sugar Shack Cafe in Cornish, I asked James if he would like to drive Pebbles, our turquoise-wrapped Tesla Model Y. “Yes!” he replied.

I’ll admit I was nervous about how he would drive the car, which is equipped with Full Self Driving autopilot. I remember when he was younger how he loved to change the settings on our previous Tesla, so when I tapped the turn signal it triggered loud fart noises.

“This is not a toy,” I reminded him as mildly as I could.

He wanted to try the autopilot setting named Aggressive, formerly known as Ludicrous. But I insisted on his sticking with the Chill setting.

James quickly got the hang of the autopilot and was impressed at how well Pebbles navigated the windy, two-lane highway back to Old Orchard Beach.

At one point, another car suddenly poked out from a side street and looked as if it might hit us. I think Pebbles would have avoided a crash herself, but James immediately took control and swerved skillfully away from the vehicle. He resumed driving without making a big deal out of it.

As I sat in the passenger seat, I loved the feeling of admiration that came over me for my grandson. This summer he is doing two internships, one at Audubon and the other at the Maine People’s Alliance. He will be a freshman this fall at Bates College, Lewiston.

After changing the driver’s seat position to accommodate his 6-foot-2 frame, James entered a different mode. I think of it as Young Man Who Will Do Cool Stuff mode.

I can imagine him in his twenties, heading off from college to take his place in a truly mixed-up world. His opinions about that world are still of interest to me. But seeing him at the wheel of our car helped me know he will act on those opinions with grace and responsibility.

Yesterday that’s how I saw him doing stuff, joyfully.

I will never forget it.

My grandson James at the wheel of our Tesla