It's quite warm today, around 94 degrees F. On my walk to the Post office, I had a major nostalgia blast, prompted much like Proust's madeleine. First I was walking home from school, probaby around 1960, through wildflowers, queen anne's lace, sunflowers and weeds all about my height or a little shorter, with butterflies frolicking, bees and yellow jackets buzzing around lazily, lots of grasshoppers leaping about and praying mantises hanging off stalks to grab some food passing by. The sound of insects was quite noisy and a desire to lie down and watch the clouds float by very intense.
Then I was 5, around 1951, sitting on the lawn in the shade of my grandmother's back porch, with the odor of dried wood drifting from the garage, the sunlight glaring from the hood of the old truck parked next to the barn, and watching my mother fill the wading pool. I can hear the squeak of the screendoor and sounds of the family in the kitchen, the scrape of gravel in the alley behind the barn, and a desire for ice cream or a cold root beer.
And then I arrived at the post office.
I'm getting sentimental in my old age.
