Memories---

Winter High

 

Funny?! It’s mid-September and I regress in thought to age twelve and a February blizzard.

Miss Candy had a doctor’s appointment today following by two weeks her hip replacement surgery. Since she had not been confined to the house during that time period, we concluded the physician’s visit and opted for a ride through the old town down Main Street; a pleasant journey.

Arriving home, we got Lady Candice Leah settled; a stark memory filled my imagination.

All my life, I have lived this grand adventure. Well! In a “kid’s” perspective, anyway. Each day presents opportunity for curiosity satisfaction through events whirring my way like snowflakes in a winter storm; I am only too happy to investigate the phenomena. Fun times.

We had quite an array of characters in our little berg when I was growing up; some thought the community of “n’re do wells” belonged in an asylum; probably, a few actually might have.

Our “celebrities” ran the gamut of malcontents from “edgy” to downright criminal. In a town with a population of barely five thousand, everybody knew everybody and all of the skeletons.

With an attitude of: Live and let live, the citizens tolerated the anomalies and prospered.

Only occasionally did the long-arm-of-the-law get involved; usually, quiet and subtle. The “cops” were friends to the citizenry; as kids we used to play cowboys in the City Hall jail cells, two steel bar cages side-by-side in the basement with the city’s three fire trucks housed on the main floor. The policemen were our neighbors and friends; often they regaled us with stories.

Our main hangout was the malt shop on Main Street; the secondary meeting place was the Dairy Bar, just four doors down from the focus spot, which also served as the bus depot. Local kids could generally be found at one or the other when they had “leisure” time on their hands.

Two brothers, older than I by eight and ten years, respectively, carried the “reputation” of our fair community as the “cool” boys of the day, as it were, not an official appointment, one of those generally accepted nonchalant lavaliere collective designations by the teen masses; a subtle “coronation” by acclamation absent either petition or campaign for such recognition.

The pair were “good” ball players, offered a persona of “fair” with a “tough” conclusion when any situation might dictate a bit of “disciplined” enforcement; every boy and girls true hero.

So, into this fertile mind pops an image of the old Dairy Bar from my youth; it is a bright cerulean late-February day in the low-forties, just chill enough to tingle the nose; a fresh four inches of white fluff highlights the street; a tinge of adventure hangs deliciously on the air.

As I approach the bus station, I spy the younger of the aforementioned brothers ahead of me, he is making snowballs and throwing them at passing traffic; nobody ever accused us of being saints; anyway, this is just some “figment” of my overactive imagination. Also, he was a bad shot. And, there was no malice in his intent---well…I’m pretty sure of that! Kids will be kids!

I felt the warmth of the late-winter sun then, upon my face, and enjoyed the moment. I like winter---exhilerating…like all of life!

The “brother” moved on in my reminiscence and I reverted to---Oh! No!...Reality!

The brothers reigned supreme in our little village for a decade, or so. I doubt that they even knew the honored designation, they were too busy just living. Each suffered heartache and disappointment in later years, but, C’est la vie! They handled it as well as they had in their youth.

“Winners” do not need to keep score; a “Class act” just is, by very definition.

 

Thanks for the cherished, secreted memories! Boys! Ahh!

 

Amen!