Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Over the Rainbow...



People, I just don't check my personal email anymore these days. It's not that I don't want to. Fact is, by the end of the day, when I've answered a thousand work-related emails...

I just don't care anymore.

This weekend; however, between the snow and Mardi Gras, I gave a few minutes of my time to my Hotmail account...

Snuggled somewhere in there, I found an email from my aunt...

Which included a link...

Um, apparently, my family has a website of their very own...

Who knew, right?

So, as any good computer nerd will do, I followed the link and got LOST in the website for a while...

While there, I wasn't just wasting time, because, well, you know me.

No, I wasn't wasting time, I was...

Stealing old photos and saving them to my computer.

This was one of them I found there. I love this picture, because in it, I see all that was mostly important to me growing up...

I see my cousin, Sherry, who is five days older than me, and even though we really didn't love one another that much when we were young...

Is my greatest champion in adulthood.

I see my sister, Beverly, two years my senior, who, all holes barred, is probably closer to me than anyone on the planet, and I don't even tell her that REMOTELY enough.

Behind us all, I see my grandparents' Winnebago...

And, people, let me tell you something...

That Winnebago was EVERY grandchild's closest friend in the 1970's.

It was in that motor home we plotted, and planned and acted...

Just that little bit of that Winnebago I can see brings back so much.

I remember Christmases and extension cords...

Easters and Easter baskets...

Taffy and Kelly...

Sherry and Gary...

Beverly and me...

And, I remember Robbie.

I remember us all scripting our annual "Wizard of Oz" play...

We did it every year.

I don't remember much about it, except that somewhere in my Grandmother's kid-unfriendly (and, not unfriendly in that bad way)house, we found a ginormous rubber ball that would signal the entrance of Glenda, the Good Witch.

I remember Beverly was always Toto. (Don't worry. We had but 4 cast members. She got to be someone else, too!)

I believe I was always the Scarecrow...

And, Robbie was The Wizard.

I remember Robbie holding up a blanket and demanding, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

I can't remember our play ever ending...

I can't remember our play ever beginning...

It just was.

Four cousins, one heart.

Oh, I remember that Winnebago...

I remember MeeMee...

I remember DeeDee...

I remember Jackie...

I remember Greenwood.

I remember fire escapes and garden hoes...

Gardens and gas tanks...

Garages that went unused...

Cash registers and "homemade" meat...

Pastures and farms...

I remember Mr. and Mrs. Bice...

I remember the First Church of Greenwood...

I remember Kelly's Truck Stop and peach cobbler...

I remember Milton.

I remember walking to the store...

I remember going to the park and the three little "rocking" gadgets they had...

I remember Waskom and grocery shopping...

I remember going to Aunt Ruby's to swim...

I remember the Mimosa tree...

Mostly, people...

I remember love.

Love surrounded us and encompassed us in that little wood frame house in Greenwood, Louisiana.

All of us, cousins...

Concerned not about the THEN...

But, about what awaited us...

Over the rainbow.

6 comments:

  1. Oh, but I loved you dearly, my sweet angel! Pam, the FUN one, the one 5 days younger but so many years wiser than I. She knew stuff I didn't, and felt feelings I didn't even know we could feel. Beverly was the "good" girl, but Pam was the one who KNEW STUFF. You wanted to be with Pam for, if nothing else, to find out what would happen next.
    Oh yes, my darling, I did love you so much--always have and always will.
    I probably did not have the ability to tell or show you how much I cared and admired you, how envious of your wise beyond your years attitude. When I became old enough to ramble to La. on my own, it was Pam I sought out. Because she is, was, and always will be the bee's knees!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this!! because it brought back my memories of younger days in CA with my cousins.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How did I miss this???

    It brought back so many wonderful memories of my own cousins... my grandparents...

    Loved it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pam--you have NAILED it with the winnebago--LMAO! My two sisters and I...the mayhem...it's a wonder my mother is still sane. Thanks so much a lovely traipse down memory lane!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh lordy... this brought back many a winnebago memory for me, also. One very special one. :)

    I didn't grow up near my cousins. Always wished I had...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I wasn't there, in your childhood, but I walked it in your words. Thank you for that.

    Before I read, and saw the song, I had to "go back" myself. That song is an instant recall for me.... Not of the movie, but a boy. Oh with me it is always a boy. But THIS was The First Boy.... That one that took my heart and ran with it.

    He sang, Brian did. In the choir at school..... and he had the voice of an angel. He was auditioning for a Summer Choir Program and Somewhere Over The Rainbow was his audition song, and he'd practice an hour before school. Daily. And I'd be there to listen, to get lost in his voice.

    Once, in adulthood, on the phone, he decided to play a cassette he'd found of his 15 year old voice singing that song. It made my heart ache. I don't hear Judy when I hear that. I hear Brian, and I remember those first pangs of a crush, the first sweet taste of romance.... It is glorious. Wonderful. Bittersweet and dreamy. The young and innocent version of myself and Brian exist over that rainbow now, back before sex and naughty made everything complicated. Just a girl, and a boy, and a song, and a first kiss.

    Had to share. ;-)

    ReplyDelete