The ouster of the 2013 Watermelon Seed Spitting Champion of Western Mexico was a highlight of this year’s July Fourth picnic at St. Mark’s Anglican/Episcopal Church in Guadalajara.
The closely fought competition came at the end of the party, held Sunday, July 5 after many of the 80 attendees had gone home, tuckered out after an afternoon of eating barbecued pork, running in a three-legged race and sweating out a two-hour beanbag toss.
Trino Palomera, a seminarian at San Andres Anglican Seminary in suburban Guadalajara, unexpectedly routed the defending champion spitter, Jim Priddy, who is rector at St. Mark’s. Priddy had been the hands-down winner in 2013 and was expected to easily triumph again this year.
“Nobody came close to Jim last year,” said one participant, “Everyone else spit just a few yards or less and Jim’s seeds went about five times as far. Maybe ten.” So overwhelming had Priddy’s victory been that few people signed up to spit this year, until tempted by a plaintive request and a low ticket price of five pesos.
{/access} “There’s a technique to it,” Priddy allowed last year, although he was never asked to divulge it.While several couples were seen practicing for this year’s three-legged race, nobody practiced for watermelon seed spitting. Yet many spitters in the field of 12 did much better than last year, indicating they had at least given the matter thought.
After Sunday’s contest, Palomera, who indicated he had not actually practiced, leaked some of his secrets, besides the obvious ones of filling his lungs to the bursting point and arching his back formidably.
“You curl your tongue and let the seed roll off it,” he said, demonstrating lingual agility not attainable by everyone, for genetic reasons. “And you pick the largest seeds, because the small ones get blown around by the wind.”
Priddy graciously conceded defeat and even expressed relief at handing the crown to someone else.
“I’m glad to get the heavy weight of the championship off my shoulders,” he emphasized. He said he plans to award the coveted trophy, a glass watermelon, to Palomera at Mass on Sunday, July 13.
“He may be the champion of Eastern Mexico too,” Priddy emphasized. “We don’t know of any other watermelon seed spitting contests in Mexico at all.”