My sister Vickie and I enjoyed attention.
Though autumn is my favorite season,
summertime reminds me of my very young days when agility, energy, discovery,
and humor were ever present and likewise was my personal mindset. Age five is a
wondrous moment when neither the past nor the future inhibit the adventurous present
nor even inhabit it cognitively very much at all.
Such was the case one night circa nineteen
sixty.
It had been a very hot day in Lafollette
Tennessee there on Rose Hill. I don’t remember the month, but I remember the
moment quite vividly as if the evening and its orchestra of environmental and
social features had been imprinted on my emotional self to reemerge
periodically and in that moment of reemergence remind me of who I most am as a
person.
Indeed, it was a hot day. My sister,
Vickie, and I had run around in the heat, humidity, and sun with no care as to
how it was affecting our bodily comfort. The only indication of heat was the
sweat running from our heads, which we, I at least, brushed away with the backs
of our hands.
I remember gulping tap
water from a glass, loaded with tastable minerals to which I had become
accustomed.
 |
| I sit between my uncle Raymond and Jim Eckenrode. My sister's toy baby buggy is visible behind us. |
But it was the evening
which held the boldest memory.
I lay under a tree,
through which leaves and branches I could see stars interrupt the color of the
sky which, though I did not know to describe at the time, I now report as “star-speckled
navy blue”. I lay, with my hands behind my head, fingers intertwined, cradling that
head, and wondered what indeed were “stars”.
Concurrent with that cognitive
wondering was the feel of a cool breeze upon my skin which caused the leaves in
the tree to briefly obscure those stars of wonder until they appeared once
again and I wondered too about the origins of cool breezes.
In all of that glorious sedentary
experience, I was soon disrupted by my sister Vickie, older than me by eighteen
months, as she grasped me by my hand and pulled me to my feet. Into the other
hand she pushed an empty canning jar and invited me to, along with her, catch
lightening bugs.
As the gathered adults
drank beer, whisky, and smoked cigarettes and cigars, and gossiped about the
local townsfolk regarding affairs, divorces, and sundry other spicy social
circumstances, Vickie and I chased the lightening bugs, tripped over exposed
tree roots, bumped into each other, and attempted to outdo each other in our
collection of bugs.
Unfortunately, one cannot control much of our own personal histories or futures.
My sister would pass away from a brain
tumor about two years later.
I am happy that this
memory survives as homage to her.
This memory also comforts
me in my continuing attribute of discovery and inquisitiveness.
It reminds me too that,
as much as we should anticipate and prepare for the future, while honoring the
past, it is the present that eagerly orchestrates a lifelong memory to cherish.
