soapboxdiner

Memory Lane

How's about a trip down memory lane on a fine Sunday morning? Yes, that's right. Nothing else substantial or interesting floating around these parts this weekend. Other than the new design. Isn't it darling and clever? I wish my Paint Shop Pro could do anti-alias text. And transparent backgrounds. Oh well, for all that I use archaic graphics software, it still looks okay I think.

Anyway, on to Memory Lane:

When I was five, we lived in a house next to a livery stable. Every weekend my sister would take me out into the street and we'd wait for riders to pass us by. Absolutely mammoth animals, horses are to a five year old. We'd smile alluringly in our innocent child-like way and procure ourselves rides on the beasts. I loved it. But I haven't ridden since.

On Saturday mornings at about the same age, the sis and I would get up extra early to watch Land of the Lost and eat my little brother's banana baby food. Mom ended up having to lock the cabinet to deter us.

My mother's father should have lived forever, he was such a great grand dad. Earlier in life, he'd been a butcher, but when the store he worked for burned down, he opened his own grocery. We'd go in and price all the canned good for him and he would pay us in all the penny candy we could eat. At lunch time, he walk us down the alleys of that small little town and we'd hunt for agates. He'd take them down to the stone polisher and get them shined up for us by the next weekend. I remember thinking there was nothing prettier than those translucent rocks grandpa gave to us.

He also made homemade horseradish and ice cream. He'd call us into the kitchen at those times with a jolly, "Susie!" (he called all the girls in the family Susie, but named his only daughter Valerie.) He'd say, "Susie! Come here and smell this horseradish for me." Like the gullible little tykes we were, we did and the fumes burned their way painfully down our sinuses and made our eyes water. He found our susceptibility to his trick quite funny.

When I was young, one of the staples growing up was "goin to the fishin hole." We'd set out the lines in the Yellowstone River and wait for the catfish to bite. We'd eat butter and radish sandwiches for lunch (which I never did like as a child) and watch the beavers going in and out of their dams. One of the first fish I ever caught was a six foot long sturgeon who fought like crazy and nearly ripped the pole from my hands. It fought so mightily that when I called for my father's help, he said, "Oh, that pole's fighting like a slap jack's on. You can handle that yourself."

When I finally hauled that six foot pre-historic behemoth in, his jaw just dropped, so shocked was he that I had the strength to do it. I remember thinking, "Yeah, some slap jack, dad. What a good call you made. You're my herrroooo, asshole."

I guess I always was a smart ass. But on the bright side, it runs in the family.

10:47 am - 09.08.02
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