I was motoring along, minding my own business, when something at the roadside caught my eye. My gaze was drawn inexorably to a set of voluptuous orbs that glistened in the sun like seals lazing on a beach.

I pulled over to get a closer look. They were even more alluring up close. No one was around, so I touched them; they were firm and smooth and flawless. Emboldened, I put my nose against one of the globes and took a deep whiff. Heaven!

My mind was made up. I stuffed some cash into a nearby receptacle and spirited my curvaceous contraband to the car. I quickly lit out, confident that nobody had seen me.

Arriving at home, I tried to sneak them into our house, hoping that my wife wouldn’t catch me. That was dumb. Trying to be sneaky invariably causes my wife’s “what is he up to?” radar to flash its blazing RED ALERT sign.

“What are you up to?” my wife asked as I sauntered casually through th “Nothing!” I replied, my voice unexpectedly jumping an octave. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re trying to hide something. What did you do?”

She saw what I had brought home and shot me “the look.”

“I couldn’t help myself!” I exclaimed. “You know I have a weakness when it comes to melons!”

This is the time of year we have been waiting for all year. It’s the season when locally grown melons have finally arrived, throngs of luscious jade and bronze curvaceousness basking enticingly in the summer sunshine.

The melons that are grown close to home are far superior to those that were raised in some far-flung corner of the planet and shipped here in the holds of colossal melon freighters. My neighbor and I discussed this very topic a few weeks ago.

“Nancy brought home a watermelon from the store the other day,” he said. “It looked OK, but it didn’t taste very good.”

I told him that I’d recently had a similar experience with a muskmelon.

“Muskmelon shouldn’t crunch like an apple when you bite into it,” I said. “It should be sweet as cotton candy and so tender that it almost melts in your mouth.”

I have tried to grow watermelons and muskmelons in our garden, but the results have been uniformly disappointing. Maybe I didn’t give the watermelons enough water or our soil contains insufficient levels of musk.

As a kid I heard of a mystical, magical South Dakota town called Forestburg. Forestburg was rumored to be a place where watermelons and muskmelons thrived, lying thick upon the land like vast herds of vegetative tortoises.

There must be something special about the Forestburg area. Not only do they grow enough roundish fruit to feed the entire state, but the quality of their melons is outstanding. The flesh of their melons is sweet enough to officially be classified as a sugar substitute.

That is why I was unable to resist pulling over when I saw the roadside stand that featured Forestburg melons. It was a self-serve stand that used the honor system for payment. It didn’t matter what price they put on their produce because it had been so long since I’ve had a decent melon that I would have paid whatever it took to lay my hands on a Forestburg fruit.

My wife sliced up the muskmelon, and I popped a piece into my mouth. Oh my gosh! It was everything that I had hoped for and everything that I remembered regarding how that fruit should taste. It almost made my eyes roll back in my head.

The muskmelon was so good that I didn’t want to let anything go to waste. I took the rinds out to our cattle yard and tossed them to our Jersey steers. The steers gobbled the rinds with enormous gusto. They enjoyed the summertime treat as much as I had.

The next day we cut into the watermelon I had brought home. I plunged our biggest kitchen knife into the orb, and it yielded to the blade with a satisfying “crack!” The dusky green rind popped open to reveal succulent, scarlet flesh.

I couldn’t help myself; I cut a generous slice, went outside, and sat on the steps. This is the proper way to eat watermelon: outdoors where it doesn’t matter how much juice dribbles down your chin and you can spit seeds wherever you like.

Eating that crimson melon while gazing across our emerald lawn was a quintessential slice of summertime. I may have even cried a little. Although that could have just been some stray watermelon juice.