An envisioning. 1996 and high summer up in the Laurentians.
Oh to be here.
Québec and the summer house just as wonderful as it had been the first year Father and Mother had packed up the station wagon, folded the back seat down, and let everyone young ride in the way back. Long into the night it had been with dawn coming up filled with birdsong, and the general store stopped off at to get a thermosful of Grandfather’s favorite Hawaiian organic coffee loaded with farm fresh cream and exactly two cane sugar packets. Funny. Grandfather willing to eat just about anything but his coffee, no. One way, like a red arrow leading only one way, with no detours and no Maxwell House out of a jar.
Cousins to play with and being barefoot all day, without the neighbor ladies saying you need shoes in case you walk on something nasty. No, nasty things in the grass that the cat got and left for dead that squish between your toes, but smearing the crabgrass with whatever it was. A final rinsing off at the outdoor faucet by the kitchen door, and all set.
All the parents heading home on Monday. Two weeks of just cousins and Grandfather with his charred hamburgers and talent for microwaving entire mixing bowls filled with ears of new corn. Sitting on the kitchen steps with little sister trying to eat the cornsilk while the dogs poke around looking for who knows what.
But . . . the cooking not mattering what with a ride into town to the movies every other day after supper . . . bags of buttered popcorn bigger than the head of a child going off to kindergarten in the fall . . . sodas with slurping straws . . . jumbo bags of Starlight mints down at the end of the concession stand case . . . expensive someone said and other people’s grandchildren on a budget with one treat each. Grandfather having arranged to charge it all up and pay at the end of the summer making the other children go green with envy . . . yes!
Starlight Mints. American. Oil on canvas. Pamela Michelle Johnson, artist. © Pamela Michelle Johnson. Fair use license. p.m.johnson.art on Instagram. via Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p.m.johnson.art/p/DMEPzAIv9AZ/?hl=en