The Dark, Long Night

I remember hot, summer nights spent riding in the hinder parts of a tiny vehicle, with us three siblings wrapped together like sardines in a can. Our parents' car didn't have air conditioning, so the windows were open. I imagine we always rode through the night because it was cooler to travel that way in the dead heat of July. We hauled it from Atlanta all the way up to the breadbaskets of Illinois, where it was flat and sweltering, with miles and miles of rows of corn growing. I always wondered why it seemed to be just as hot there in the summer as it was in Georgia, because winter was an entirely different story. Our Grandma Betty always made sure we went swimming in the city pool at least once or twice while we were there. Sometimes it was at an ancient monstrosity of a pool; it looked like a tank for whales, not people. There were even murky portholes under the surface, where folks could go down and see all the chubby legs swimming. That seemed strange to me. While I was swimming, I made sure I stayed in the center of the pool, far away from any weirdos looking for cheap thrills down in the tunnels. Not that I was winning any body building contests. I looked like a tall, pre-pubescent child up until after we married. The month I got pregnant, strange things began to happen, as if my body wasn't going to grow up until there was a baby on the way. I always worked at a pool or swimming hole, from the time I was twelve. I love the water. I have enough unusual stories from those years to fill a small book. People do bizarre things when there's water involved. Boys were always fancying they were in love with me, just because I was the lifeguard. I was followed home from the pool on many occasions, where my Dad was fortunately, usually, working outside. He was the sweetest man on earth, until he wasn't. There abides much power in the craggy eye of a good Daddy. 

Thinking back to those muzzy trips, where us kids slept and sweated those hours away in a hot vehicle. Mama would pack some snacks and a thermos full of sweet tea, but since we left after supper, there generally wasn't a meal until we arrived at Grandma's house, some 14 hours later. Soda crackers smeared with peanut butter, stacked back inside the sleeve. Fruit, usually apples. If we were lucky, Little Debbies. No matter what, there was a Stuckey's somewhere along the highway there or back, and Daddy would buy a giant pecan roll. He'd hand each of us a chunk and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. There's no misery like riding in a blistering car with the windows rolled down, going 70+ miles an hour. We were raised right, where things like whining were not rewarded. So you learned to endure and stick your head out the window, pretending you were on the back of a wild horse or riding the wind. When daylight came, there were books strowed all around the back seat, from the public library. We'd make ourselves carsick, trying to read them while the car swayed. Grandma was a book freak herself and worked for a publisher, so the days at her house were full of us languishing over the ones she'd brought from the book sales. Her house was cold with central air conditioning. Napping and reading were considered right and good activities. There was a requisite night out for steak dinner and often fireworks at the park. She always had a dance floor in her house, as well as a fully stocked bar. We'd sneak maraschino cherries and ogle her tins of strange food and bottles of drink from far-off places. She was a glamorous Chicago socialite and we were country bumpkins, full of wonder. I wish I could talk to her now, show her her beautiful offspring, pick her brains. 

On one such trip, I awoke to the sight of a policeman at the window, talking to Daddy in the middle of the night. It was in the 70s, there was a weak President in the White House, energy resources were low and they were rationing gas. Those days were frightening; it seemed like things were tipping on their head. But somehow we made it there and back again. Today I felt the same way, like I was staring at the edge of a precipice. Wars, rumors of wars, uncertainties and conundrums. All the wonders of the universe, along with the simple and the good, the bad, the ugly, I'm still glad this ain't all there is...