August 11 – White Mushroom Day

White mushroom is the most noble, desired trophy of all “quiet hunters”. If you managed to find it, consider that the mushroom picking was successful. And for good reason – after all, the porcini mushroom is not only beautiful, fragrant and tasty, but also rich in vitamins, minerals and other useful substances. However, today, on the Day of the porcini mushroom, I remembered a completely different story, however, connected specifically with porcini mushrooms …

In my distant childhood, my family lived in the Gorky region, near Murom. Mushrooms in the Murom forests are apparently invisible, and yet my five-year-old brother was the record holder for collecting porcini mushrooms. Small, nimble, he collected a basket of strong mushrooms faster than anyone else. Helped in the collection of his growth, dexterity, and tenacious memory. He knew “his” gathering places well and never passed by…

Years passed, my brother and I each got our own families, and our meetings, and even more so, mushroom picking, became less and less until they disappeared.

But then one sunny autumn day, having arrived to visit my brother at the dacha, I suggested:

“Why don’t we, brother, go to the forest, pick mushrooms?”

He looked at me in surprise.

“Yes, in our forest near Moscow, summer residents have mowed down all the mushrooms for a long time, look, all the paths, as in a city park, have been trampled down.”

Still, I persuaded him. He reluctantly took the basket, and we moved towards the forest.

Almost immediately, outside the outskirts, I found a boletus. He stood peacefully on a strong leg under a white-trunked tree. The funny thing is that the brother passed by this forest miracle without noticing it! I put the mushroom in the basket, and my brother’s face began to play with his jaws. I hurt his best feelings!

Let’s move on – more boletus! And again he passes by … When a family of oilers fell into my basket, I took pity and said:

“Can you cut them off?

It was a low blow. His brother’s face turned red with annoyance. After all, he has always been a mushroom picker!

Here I must explain that he was the youngest in the family, and he always had an unspoken competition with me. Later, in adulthood, he said in his hearts: “Here you were always more successful than me at school, and you entered the institute with ease, and my parents always pulled me …”

And only in one he had, as he considered superiority – in picking mushrooms! And here – such an annoyance!

And suddenly the forest burst out with his triumphant cry: “Aaaaaaa!!!”

I stepped closer. Under the snag, by which I passed, there was a huge porcini mushroom! I have never seen such huge mushrooms before this day or after. My brother was undoubtedly the king of this “gribalka”, and with a triumphant look he put his trophy into the basket.

We started laughing out loud. Because this tacit competition was put to an end. And then we sat down on the stumps, and, as in childhood, we began to crunch with apples, which I prudently took on the road. And suddenly we heard a distant murmur. They raised their heads to the sky and saw a flock of cranes flying south. And this mushroom hunt, and cranes, became for us the starting point of bifurcation, which allowed us to understand the main thing that exists in family ties. This is our common past, our childhood, our parents who have gone into another world, whom we will never forget …

Nina DONSKIKH.

Photo by Vladimir Sabadash