Down Memory Lane Back, back, the pages of my memory turned: quickly past the pain of Mama's funeral, the death of one of my children, Dad's passing, the loss of a brother. Back past the years that would separate my twin and me...back, back past the broken dreams and wrong turns, past the heartache and tears--back to the early years. The flood of memories halted and Dale and I were once again engaged in play. It was "Kick the Can", "Hide and Seek", and "Mother, May I?" until the dusk of twilight turned into night's darkness and Mama would call us in.
We weren't immediately obedient children, either. At least not when it came to trading the stuffiness of the house for the pleasure of playing with our cousins in the cooler night air. Mama must have known this; we would go through the same routine each night. She would call us twice and then threaten to get Daddy if we didn't come in right away. As we reluctantly bid our playmates good-bye, we were already planning the next day's escapades.
Mama always had a glass of cold milk waiting for us, along with a biscuit she had poked a hole in and poured full of honey, or she'd sneak into Daddy's cookie stash, all the while admonishing us that we were not to do it. Many times Dale and I snuck in the kitchen, after we just knew Mama and Daddy were asleep. Who did we think we were fooling? There were never as many cookies in the package when we found them covered up on the table as there had been earlier that night. Strange, isn't it, how many years must pass before one realizes just how much their parents really knew?
Cattails grew in wet weather ponds in the field across from our home--they became mighty battle swords in our games. There were deep gullies and high ridges from which to fight the enemy and erect many fortresses of defense.
Granny lived in a trailer close behind our house--oh, we loved going to Granny's. She always had canned biscuits; they were a real novelty to us as Mama always made homemade ones ('cause that's what Daddy liked, of course). And even more importantly to us, Granny had a tv: we didn't. Many a late Sunday afternoon I watched the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, but it was hard to hear--Mama and Granny talked about everything in the entire world.
I remember the time I poked holes in Uncle Milburn's tube of toothpaste. I really didn't do it to be mean, I just thought the little round holes made with the tooth of a comb were neat. It never occurred to me that one squeeze of the tube would force toothpaste out everywhere. I washed Uncle Milburn's car and raked his yard to pay for it.
Uncle Milburn was the neatest uncle--he had traveled to far away places, which he didn't mind telling us kids about. We sat for countless hours and listen to him tell about one sight after another he had seen here and yon while he repaired the lawn mower or worked on his motorboat.
Granny lived with Uncle Milburn and his two children, Eddie and Lynda. The youngest, Eddie, would periodically clean out his junk drawer and hide a shoe-box full of toys in the gullies where Dale and I would find it--oh the stories we invented of who must have buried it there! It was only in our pre-teen years that we finally realized who had actually captained our treasure tales.
Uncle Herman, the oldest of Mama's brothers and sisters was a tale-teller of all tale-tellers. I reckon he came to visit Mama and Granny and Uncle Milburn, but it seems he always wound up spending more time with Dale and me. He was a very large man--I still remember how strong he was--we swung on his outstretched arms many times. It was a featured moment at every visit. He said that way he could tell how much we were growing. He and Uncle Milburn both defended me against Mama's attempts to turn me into a little lady--said to let me be a tomboy. When I got grown I'd have to be a lady, Uncle Herman always said. And when I got grown, he often told me how proud he was of me, that I was a fine young lady. He loved to quiz Dale and me on spelling and math--if we did well, he took us to the store at the end of the drive we lived on and bought us a coke or candy bar.
Then, there was the year of The Birthday Party, the one where Dale invited the neighborhood kids to his birthday party, but neglected to tell them it was my birthday, too. Both sets of cousins scurried to correct the oversight. Fortunately, they were able to purchase my favorites, coloring books and crayons at the nearby store and I was fine, then.
They were great cousins to grow up with: besides Eddie and Lynda on Mama's side of the family, there was Janet and Lucky on Daddy's side. No, his name wasn't really "Lucky", but it was a nickname that stuck and to this day, he's still "Lucky" to me. Despite being the youngest of our group, he rarely had any trouble keeping up with the rest of us. Mama drew the line on my tomboyishness at climbing trees--yet I could enjoy watching Janet beat the others to the top. Oh, what grand days they were, indeed!
Their mom and dad, Aunt Ann and Uncle Doyle, were so good to us as we grew up. Aunt Ann had about the prettiest, cleanest house I'd ever been in, and it always smelled so good. To this day I cannot manage the level of neatness she always maintained. Uncle Doyle was another man who had traveled a lot. Like Uncle Milburn, he had been in World War II. Dale and I listened to them both speak of their service on rare occasions, but we knew better than ask too many questions--the memories were still too fresh, even after nearly twenty years.
I recall the muddy detour we had to take as they put in the bridge over the new interstate near our home. Daddy loved to hear us squeal as he would make the car accidentally slide. He didn't do it as often as we would have liked: "Harland, I'm going to hit you with my purse if you do that again," Mama would say. He'd wink at her, she'd act huffy and give him a poke in the arm.
We got to go to bed later--school was out and nights such as those were not to be wasted! We'd play so late the light from inside would hurt our eyes when we went in to wash off the day's sweaty dirt and got ready to go to bed. Every night, bedtime included the same ritual: we'd go in to bid Daddy goodnight as he lay listening to the huge radio that sat on the floor next to his bed. Daddy's beard had grown stubby by then and I'd pretend to pull out whiskers that stuck in my face when I kissed him on the cheek and stick them back on his face. He never failed to laugh about it.
I had the front bedroom. My bed was situated in a corner, between windows on both sides. I could turn the bed in either direction to gaze out the window of choice for that week. We always slept with the windows open, aluminum tabs pulled tightly down on the screens to keep out most of the bugs. The exhaust fan in the carport/living room window was turned down low to gently pull in the fresh night air.
From my room, I could hear Daddy's big radio, broadcasting from distant places. I loved to think about how far away they were and dreamed of someday getting there. Daddy listened to the same station every night from Monterey, Mexico--the evangelists now long gone from this life. Promptly at 10:30, the house would grow quiet and begin to settle from the heat of the day.
Even now I can hear the whine of tractor-trailer tires on the interstate in the distance. Crickets would chirp; somewhere in the distance a dog would bay and once in a while, I could hear an owl hoot-hoot. Moonlight filtered through the lacey summer curtains as they moved and twisted with the night breezes, casting shadows on the walls and foot of my bed.
My closet was the collection point for every loose item in my room when Mama told me to clean it up. Ever so often I'd wake during the night and see my clothes I'd thrown over the back of the old blonde wicker chair. With my child's imagination, I would scare myself into near heart failure, seeing someone there. Sometimes I would sit up in bed, see my own reflection in the mirror of my dresser and study astronomy for long minutes afterwards, when I clunked my head on the bookcase headboard from my quick backward lunge.
It never failed: whichever parent I called during the night, the other would answer, always reassuring me, "Everything is all right. Go back to sleep," and I would. Oh no! I just remembered! I never did tell Mama it was me imitating our cat the night she got back up and spent so long trying to find it in the house.
The telephone's ring brings me back to the present. As I go to answer it, I recall the words of that dear old hymn: "Come home, come home, it's suppertime. The shadows lengthen fast. Come home, come home, it's suppertime. We're going home at last."
Dale, wherever you are, please know that I love you. I never stopped praying for you. Someday ...
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