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“He’s my friend,” Julie says with a sweet smile that she reserves for those times when something has touched her heart.

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“I don’t know his name,” she says.

“What kind of friend is that?” I snort. I’m a good snorter when the occasion calls for it. “You don’t even know his name?”

“He picks out my peaches and tells me which cantaloupe to buy,” she says, a little sternly now, as if to say: Back off, buster. “He’s a very good friend.”

He is, indeed. His name is Shorty Phillips, and he and his wife, Lori, own and operate Country Fruit Stand No. 2, just outside of Goldsboro. For the last 13 years, Julie and I have stopped there most of the million times we have driven to Morehead City. We rarely pass it without a visit. The dogs in the back seat don’t even raise their heads when we hit the gravel parking lot. They know the deal.

Night and day, day and night, if Shorty’s not there, Lori is, and if neither of them is working, their daughter, Christie Lee, is. It’s Christie Lee who makes the homemade strawberry and peach ice cream and the peanut butter delight cookies ­— and yes, Julie, I am buying two, so you can just wipe that judgy look off your face.

Country Fruit Stand No. 2 photograph by Charles Harris

The Phillips’s Country Fruit Stand empire turned 50 years old this summer. Shorty’s parents, Bobby and Jean Phillips, opened the first location in 1976. Shorty and Lori opened their own in 1984, just up the highway, and ran it for 27 years. When U.S. Highway 70 was upgraded and morphed into Interstate 42, construction forced the close of Shorty and Lori’s stand, and Shorty’s parents wanted to retire anyway, so it just made good sense to put the two together. Bobby Phillips had painted the stalls and bins bright yellow with red letters, and there’s been no good reason to change that since. You can see the place coming for a country mile, even when you’re not looking for it. But we’re always looking for it.

Julie and I are not gardeners, but we love fresh produce. If there’s anyone who loves a strawberry more than my bride, I’ve never met them. Ditto blueberries. And I could eat corn till the cows come home. Ditto tomatoes. So we rely on the kindness of roadside vendors to sate our fresh produce addiction, and Country Fruit Stand No. 2 never disappoints.

We wander in past giant bins of watermelons, cantaloupes, and corn. Julie goes straight for the produce while I hit the fun aisles. I’m a sucker for a jar of Amish jelly. Or a smoked ham hock. I’ve left with boiled peanuts — Shorty cooks them in his yard at home — fudge, country ham, pork belly, and various pickles and jams. We’ve bought flowers and ferns and firewood.

I hear Julie holler from somewhere beyond the butter beans: “The squash looks really good. Do we want some?”

Do we want some? Of course we want some.

Lori, Christie Lee, and Shorty carry on a family tradition at Country Fruit Stand No. 2, where customers have stopped for fresh produce since 1976. photograph by Charles Harris

By the checkout counter is where you find the really good stuff, the fruits and vegetables so popular that Shorty and Lori put them front and center. Cherries in season. The best okra, bright green and unblemished, much of it from the Phillips’s own farm. Muscadines and scuppernongs, when the time is right. Five-pound buckets of peaches that are ready-to-eat-right-now, don’t-wait-another-minute.

Julie eyeballs the strawberries. “Are they still good?” she asks.

“Well … ,” Shorty hesitates. Heavy rains half-drowned the strawberry fields over the last few days. “If you wait a week,” he advises, “they’ll be better.” That’s an honest man.

She puts the tomatoes she’s chosen on the counter and holds her breath slightly. Julie is a pretty good tomato picker-outer, but there’s always a chance that Shorty might have a better idea. She welcomes his insight and suggestions on everything else, but she does like to think that she can nail a good tomato when the pressure’s on.

Whew. Shorty rings them up. Hers pass his inspection.

Our daughter, Markie, is a farmers market aficionado. Once, after Shorty rang us up, her eyes went wide. “Do you know how much all this would cost in Atlanta?” she whispered.

But we’re not in Atlanta. We’re in Wayne County. Between the Neuse and Little rivers. Right there where Interstate 42 and Future Interstate 42 — I’m as confused as anyone about this — split off from what used to be U.S. 70. Or maybe it’s still U.S. 70? Hard to say.

From in-season tomatoes and corn to barbecue sauce and colorful flowers, Country Fruit Stand No. 2 reveals the beauty in the season’s bounty. photograph by Charles Harris

We walk out, three bags stuffed and groaning. As I put them in the back of the truck, Julie pulls out a cantaloupe. I can smell its sweet ripeness. “Look at that cantaloupe,” Julie says, nearly in a swoon. “My friend picked it out for me.”

Of all the veggie stands in all the little towns in all the world, this is her favorite. There are other routes to the beach. In heavy traffic, there are quicker ways. But all the other ways don’t go by Country Fruit Stand No. 2. “So all the other ways,” Julie says, “are wrong ways.”

The bins are yellow, her favorite color. She loves the simple things — corn fresh from the field, potatoes that still have dirt on them. It’s as welcoming a place as you could hope to find by the side of the highway. And they have boiled peanuts. Did I mention that?

“When I leave,” Julie says, “I always feel better than I did when I got there.”

Which is what friends are for.

Country Fruit Stand No. 2
100 Community Drive
Goldsboro, NC 27530
(919) 920-0171
facebook.com/CountryFruitStand2