The annual Watermelon Thump has been a Central Texas staple for more than 70 years.
East Davis Street in Luling is lined with low-slung brick mom-and-pop shops. One, a cafe, is actually called “Mom’s Front Porch”. But the road deviates from a classic Main Street feel with its centerpiece: a massive tin-roofed pavilion topped with an ornate green sculpture, marking it as the home of the Central Texas town’s longrunning “Watermelon Thump” festival. The pavilion is a permanent fixture; in fact, the nonprofit that runs the Thump owns a good portion of the street.
It’s a lot for first-time attendees, or even casual melon enthusiasts, to take in. Nicole Smith, photographer and writer for thelocal weeklyGrowers can rake in thousands of dollars for a single fruit during the high-energy melon auction. The second melon in line is a commanding fruit I feel compelled to call The Big One. It hasn’t hit the scale yet, but it’s clearly the largest of the bunch. As its grower lifts it to the scale, someone in the crowd shouts, “Don’t drop it!” The Thump has an established policy for dropped melons: If it makes it through the door, it’s entered into the contest; with witnesses, festival staff weigh the dropped melon’s remains, and the result goes into the record books.
This year, only seven growers entered the contest. In years past, the Thump had so many growers they had to limit the auction to the top 15. You have a lot of enemies as a melon grower: wild hogs, deer, too much rain, too little rain. “Everything’s against you,” says Bubba Damon, a Watermelon Thump board member. Many local growers have turned to less-fickle crops or livestock.
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