During my growing up years, my parents had a sheet metal shop in Brooklyn, close to the docks and the Battery Tunnel that connected our borough to Manhattan.  Every year, as the December holidays approached, gifts began arriving from suppliers.  The best of all the gifts was a box of Comice pears from an orchard way on the other side of the country.  Although the docks provided us with a year-round supply of luscious fruits from all over the world, those holiday boxes of pears were bigger, better, and juicier than any other pear, bar none.