Can I borrow your skate key?
Rewriting
History
Opa
says my newest coffee mug, Opa
is the Greatest,
as I take another sip of my second cup for this early Friday. Like
birthday cards, the sentiments that sell coffee mugs -- one must take
them a bit lightly lest one become overly enamored of one's
greatestness. If I were to wish, I might wish I'd said these things
to my Opa instead of so reservedly thinking “he knows.” I think one did know. I think the other hurt. Looking back, an octogenarian sees blank spots, empty spaces
where words could have been said and a loved one blessed by the hearing,
even changing the future, and now the
past, history rewritten.
If
this were a subtraction problem in second grade math, it's the
difference between thankfulness and regret. For everyone, it's
different, so work out your own salvation.
We
went to Pensacola yesterday to have the free 30,000 mile service for
a daughter's car. Mullet and oysters on Bayou Texar. While Linda &
Kris tour that gift shop at the SW corner of Cervantes and 12th
Avenue, I gas-up the car and drive west on E. Strong Street past The
House and through a neighborhood that is part of that History, sidewalks where cousins Margaret and Bill taught me to rollerskate. Don't forget your skatekey. For
Sale sign in front of The House, which looks like it needs to
be pulled down. Sad to see a "Publix Coming Soon" sign in front of A.V.
Clubbs School where my mother went so long ago.
Driving
back was rush hour traffic leaving Pensacola, through Gulf Breeze, through
the Eglin AFB area and the new overpass at the main gate, through
Mary Esther, through Fort Walton Beach, through Destin and SanDestin.
Stop and go traffic through what seventy years ago was a long, deserted
two-lane stretch between Destin and the Bay County line at Phillips
Inlet; heavy traffic through PCB and double, triple, quadruple
approaching and crossing Hathaway Bridge until curving off into St.
Andrews at the Beck Avenue traffic light.
Arriving
home so exhausted that with a small glass of red, heart meds, horror
and Lasix40 at swelled ankles, I was asleep for the night at 6:15
p.m. While the head slept, the kidneys were up-and-at-em with Father
Nature ringing at 8:10, 9:30, 11:30, 1:20, 2:15, … Now my cellphone
is missing. In my stupor, I must have left it in the car. I'll see
when I go down for the Friday walk with Robert.
Today:
write & walk, pax & prep. Saturday: funeral, wedding. Sunday: busy
busy busy busy busy ZONK.
Thos+