SOMETIMES...

Sometimes it’s a song I hear –

“Memories light the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories of the way we were

Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line…”

Millville Memories flow "like rivers in my mind"

...and for no reason at all…Like this memory of a day at Lake Nummy floats into my mind – I guess because it's summer again?

I feel its dark cold “cedar water” which always tinted my bathing suit orange and mom saying, “Don’t worry it won’t hurt you, it washes out!  And I wondered if she meant my trunks or out of me? 

This “lake” wasn’t really a lake – it was a spring fed pond of freezing water…all summer long and the best place to be when it was near hundred degrees in our house without air conditioning.  Central air?  Only in Sears and the movies, when it was working.

Then this stream of consciousness jumps to another summer long ago…

I’m riding my bike around the block pretending I am a Vineland Speedway stock-car driver…I’m Lou Mood in my baby blue ‘47 Ford…good old number lazy 8 on the car door sideways!…all re-painted and de-dented after a crash on the first turn last weekend.  

I’m, of course, in the lead but being hotly pursued by the infamous “Sliding Lou” Taznatti in his ominous black and red ’49 Chevy…but I’m holding the lead on our newly oiled road through the woods.  Replaying last Friday’s race.

Many Fridays we all would go to the Vineland track and sit for the 4 heats and then the big final…and I would wave the checked flag from the souvenir shop as the winner crossed the line.  The roar of these “soaped up” cars without mufflers rattled us in the stands…and each week on the way home we would stop at the drive-in for a black cow ice cream sodas.  I feel the sweet fizz…

And then another memory of a hot evening at the Legion Marti-Gra comes on the screen of my mind…the night my grandfather was asked to stop tossing the softballs into the peach baskets…I couldn’t hold any more stuff animals…I hear the Legionnaire beg, “Come on Herb leave some for the other kids…Pop had long arms and just about dropped those balls in the basket…I smell the popped corn…the sweetness of blue or pink cotton candy…hot dogs, a delicacy, better than Beluga caviar for a nine year old!

If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we… You betcha!