Being Poor and Orange Popsicles in Summer

I got lost in a memory today. The kind that are so vivid that you are living it again- just as it was when it happened.



It was summer time and I was outside playing in the yard. It was a really hot day and my hands were sticky with orange Popsicle drippings. I was wearing a faded cotton dress with rainbow pastel stripes and tennis shoes two sizes too big. I didn't have any shoes so I wore my cousin's hand-me-downs. I remember they kept falling off as I ran through the dry crunchy grass. I was going to kick them off when Mom wasn't looking anyway-so it didn't bother me much. I was running to my tire swing. A big black semi tire that was tied with old tow rope to a massive weeping willow tree. I was spinning around and around. My head was hanging back and the willow branches looked like long tentacles all around me. The tire smelled of wet, rotting rubber. It was hot on my legs. I could feel the little black hairs of the tire rubbing against the back of my thighs. My fingers were still sticky but my palms were rough from rubbing the old rope. The cicada's song was humming in my ears as the branches creaked with my spinning. I heard Tommy call my name but I just kept spinning- I didn't want to play with broken GI Joe's. I just wanted to be with my willow tree. I could hear my Mom singing Hank Williams songs as she washed our laundry in the kitchen sink. We didn't have a washer and dryer and going to the laundry mat was not an option. We were poor- dirt poor and I knew it. It seemed like we spent years in that farmhouse- but it was only a summer. I guess this is how I remember being poor and eating Popsicles in summer.



The house was old and smelled of rotting wood. Mom always kept a window open- we needed fresh air she said. That house made the strangest noises at night. When my brother and I would sleep in the attic- we could hear the house moan below us. We would snuggle up closer on our old mattress on the floor. No sheets- just two pillows and a blanket. Oh, the stories we would whisper in each other's ear. Mom was usually working and all our cousins slept on the second floor. So, me and Tommy could talk late into the night without being heard. We would talk about how much we missed Grandma and Poppy. We would make up silly ghost stories about that old house or pretend we were living in some strange land. Sometimes though, we would just cry ourselves to sleep. I remember singing him lullabies and rubbing his back. I wonder if he thinks of those nights.



I remember when they bull dozed that old house-full of summer memories. See- that house was supposed to be condemned but my Mom was able to convince the farmer to let her and the nine of us to stay there just for the summer or at least until she found another place. And by fall Mom couldn't take care of us anymore and we were back at Grandma and Poppy's to start school. One weekend she came and picked us up. She told us that she had to leave the farmhouse and that she was staying at Grandma's house. But that we could drive by and see what was left. We drove down the long overgrown rock driveway to see a large pile of wood. That was all that was left. Just piles of wood, garbage and some old cars. My tire swing had been cut down and put on the roof of one of the old cars. We started to walk around the yard- looking at all the rumble. I noticed that my willow tree had a big red X painted on the trunk. I asked Mom what it meant. She told me that they were going to cut it down. But why would they cut down my tree? My beautiful weeping willow tree! She didn't have an answer and she said it was time to get going. We got in the car and backed down the long driveway, leaving to go to Grandma's house. That was the last time I saw my willow tree. Looking back now, I think Mom hoped that if we saw that the house was gone- then maybe we would let go of all that had happened in it. But memories have a way of returning. They always come back. You smell something that takes you back to a place or event. You see a familiar thing that reminds you of something that you just can't quite remember- and then there it is! The memory is in full view and you are in it again. Smelling, hearing, touching. Nothing is ever really lost inside- just hidden.



There's a gas station and a Dairy Queen where my farmhouse used to be. You would never know that there once was an old house full of people living there. Every time I drive past-I slow down and I remember that summer and all my spinning.