I Remember: A Missouri Summer Slice of Life

I Remember: A Missouri Summer Slice of Life

“Mom, she’s touching me!”

“He won’t move his legs!”

Mom turns toward the back of the car, “Shut up! All of you! Go to sleep.”

We three kids are stuffed into the back seat of our parents’ new ’56 Chevy station wagon as we barrel from a Colorado crystal blue afternoon sky to Kansas gray, headed for Missouri soggy.

Air is hot and stuffy. Dreams of being held down, drowning, I wake up with a start to find my younger sister lying on top of me. I shove her off, waking her up. She stretches and lands a punch on my little brother’s face.

“Are we there yet?” we cry wearily from the hot back bench seat.

Mom hands us PBJ sandwiches, followed by half a glass of water. We drive on into the night. Hoping to sleep a little more, I count cars going toward home.

Hours later, hot and sweating we drag ourselves into the roadside bathroom as Dad pumps gas to go another 300 miles. The colors of the world are washed in a sick yellow color as the sodium yellow lights flicker and hiss. Spider webs hang in the corners filled with moths and mosquitoes. We do our business quickly. Dad pulls the car over to the side of the filling station so he can drink his coffee and stretch. We chase each other around, yelling “You’re it!” as we slap at each other and the mosquitoes.

Stuffed back inside the car, we driving into the blackness once more. Mom hangs a wet towel in the front passenger window, opens the wing window. Cooler air flows into the back. I dream of not moving, of cool nights watching the stars, of sitting under trees and playing in the water in the irrigation ditch in the front of our house.

Sunrise catches the city, asleep, quiet, cool, as we drive down the tree covered street. The grass is greener than anything we have ever experienced. Dad stretches in the passenger seat – somewhere along the highway Mom started driving. I wonder when.

We pull across the sidewalk, up a steep drive into a space beside a long white house with a screened porch that runs along the front of the house and down one side. An ample woman comes down the stairs from the porch, her smile as big as she is. Aunt Amy opens the car door and pulls my mother out, hugging her, laughing, crying, and “You made it!”

She smells of cinnamon and coffee as she shoves the front seat forward so we kids can get out. As we tumble out, she looks us over, clucks her tongue, “My, my, my! How you all have grown! Just look at you!” She brushes her short graying hair off her face.

“Well, say something!” Mom demands.

My sister dances around a bit, shakes her leg, looks frantically toward the house.

Before we can think of anything to say, Aunt Amy shouts, “George, open the door. We got visitors who need to pee!”

My sister darts up the stairs to the side porch and disappears into the house. Both my brother and I follow closely behind. A rotund Uncle George points the way to the back of the house to the bathroom off the kitchen. The only bathroom in the house.

Breakfast is waiting along with aunts, cousins, uncles in the front room. Eggs, sausage, cool delicious melon, tall glasses of fresh milk, pancakes staked so high I can’t see my sister sitting across the table from me. Rich melting butter mingles with real syrup and drips over the edges of my pancakes. Fans roar pushing warm air around the room, belly laughs from aunts, kicks under the table from cousins. Uncles and Dad excuse themselves to smoke on the side porch, no smoking in the house. Aunts clear the table, dishes to the kitchen, extra food to the fridge. Aunt Amy has a new gadget, a freezer. All the trouble and the heat of canning is now unnecessary, Aunt Amy says. The women talk about it, then insist they will continue canning. Mom slips out to the side porch, then on down into the garden followed by a thin trail of smoke.

Mom and Dad drift into the back bedroom and close the door. Slowly the house drains of people, most saying they’ll be back for dinner. Uncle George looks at us, concerned, “So what do we do with you?” he shakes his head as he asks. Then with a sly smile and a nod of his bald head, he says, “Follow me.”

He leads us outside into the muggy air, through the garden to the garage. “Now what did I do with it?” he mutters as he opens the garage door. “Ah! Here we are!”

Propped up next to his black and white ’54 Chevy is a girl’s bike. My heart jumps as I touch it, afraid it is a dream. It’s not. The metal handle bars are cold to my touch. I can’t wait to try it out. It looks like the seat is just the right height for me and my long legs.

My sister pouts, “But I can’t ride a bike, I’m not ten yet.” Her long dark brown bangs swing into her eyes.

“I know, Sweet Cakes, I have something special just for you,” he says as he kneels down to look her in the eye. From under the car he pulls a set of roller skates, the clamp on your shoe type, each skate with four wheels and skate key. As an added bonus he says, “And if you want, I’ll teach you how to ride a bike.”

My sister brightens up, “How did you know?” she whispers as she hugs the skates.

Uncle George touches the side of his nose, “I have my ways.” He turns to my brother, “And for you Champ, your ride is in front of the car.”

My little brother scurries into the depths of the garage. “Wow!” He pulls an old trike around the side of the car, running over my toes as he races into the alley to try it out.

Uncle George lights up a cigar, leans against the back of his car and from the shade and coolness of the garage, he watches us as we race up and down the alley, yelling, screaming, laughing. We aren’t aware of how hot or humid it is, we only know that for now, we are free.

I see Mom and Dad come out and head for their car. They are off to get Grandma from her farm. We aren’t invited. Aunt Amy says, “I need two chickens,” as she hands Dad a stack of brown paper. “We’ll strip the feathers off when you get back.” I hear her chuckle then answer something Mom mumbles, “Don’t you worry about the kids. George and I’ll be fine. You drive safe. That road is a beast. Tell my sister she can stay the night here.”   

Sweaty, hot, tired and thirsty, we tramp in from the alley to drink fresh squeezed lemonade with ice cubes. We lie on the polished wood floor and let the hot air swirl over us stirred by the constantly running fans. We find the coolest place is on the tile floor by the cellar door in the kitchen. We smell of kids running wild in the hot summer sun of southern Missouri.

My brother starts itching his legs around his sock line.

“Chiggers,” announces Aunt Amy as she inspects the bites. Out comes the rubbing alcohol followed by soothing pink calamine lotion. Nail polish is dabbed over the tougher big bites. His chubby fingers stop clawing at his ankles, but he still rubs his socks against his skinny legs.

Lunch is baloney sandwiches slathered with mustard and mayonnaise on day-old bread, chips and fresh baked oatmeal cookies dunked in cool sweet milk.

We can hardly keep our eyes open. Blanket pallets on the floor of the side porch await us. Cool sheets are pulled over us as we doze in the heavy, hot, humid air of summer. 

A gentle hand rocks me awake. I open my eyes to Grandma’s smile. “Good to see you!” She hugs me as I sit up. “Oh! Careful now! I’m not as young as I used to be!” The hug surrounds me with the smell of old cigarettes and stale coffee. “Come on, we need help stripping the chickens.”

Grandma leads me into the back the garden. Aunt Amy is stirring a large pot of boiling hot water balanced on a metal grate above an open fire. The suffocating heat causes Aunt Amy’s short gray hair to plaster to her skull. Grandma grabs some tongs, reaches into the pot and pulls a headless chicken out, its feathers pasted to its body. She tests it with a fork, shakes her head and drops the chicken back into the boiling water. Aunt Amy changes places with Grandma, waits a few minutes to cool off, then using the tongs, pulls a chicken out of the water and tests it like Grandma did. Both women smile as Aunt Amy drops the chicken into a pot of cool water. A second chicken quickly follows. The boiling water pot is turned over, drowning out the fire, releasing more hot moisture into the already moist air. Grandma brushes the few wisps of gray hair that escaped the braid she has wound around her head out of her eyes.

“Come on, child, time to earn your keep,” Grandma says as she points to a stack of old newspapers. “Spread these out so we can collect the feathers. You still saving feathers, Amy?”

Aunt Amy nods, “We get a good price for ‘em at the hardware store.” She picks up a chicken and starts plucking the feathers out. “You look to make sure no meat is on the feathers, and spread them out so they’ll dry, okay?” she tells me.

Hot slippery, sticky feathers coat my hands as I check to make sure the feather shafts are clean. The smell is overwhelming, my stomach lurches, I gag. Embarrassed, I look up, neither woman notices what I’m doing as they quickly pluck the chickens clean. Once stripped, the chickens are rinsed in the cool water to get the clinging downy feathers off. Satisfied, Grandma and Aunt Amy pour the cooling pot water out over the garden and hurry inside to cook dinner.

I take a stick and spread the feathers out then look at my feather covered hands, wipe them on the newspapers. I wave my hands in the air, hoping to get the rest of the feathers off me. But wet hands don’t dry in this Missouri humidity. Dad, red-faced from the heat, comes out with a clean damp towel which he drapes over my shoulders. The coolness gives me goose bumps. Dad helps me de-feather myself. We don’t talk. I know he doesn’t like the heat, he’d prefer to be camping in the cool Colorado mountains.

Inside, my sister and brother are sitting on the floor, watching cartoons on the black and white TV. Uncle George is snoring in his lazy boy chair in the corner with his gray tabby cat purring on his belly. Mom is on the side porch peeling boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs while Grandma and Aunt Amy slather the chickens in the old enamel baking pan with butter and herbs, slap a lid on the pan with a clang and shove it into the hot oven. The fans can’t move the heat rolling out of the kitchen fast enough. The women move the construction of dinner onto the porch. The cat stretches then jumps off Uncle George, probably looking for cooler places to sleep.

Aunts, uncles, cousins and friends pile through the door for dinner. The long tables are set up on the side porch, red checkered table clothes are spread out, chairs are hastily unfolded and plates are put into place. My job is to make sure everyone gets silverware – a knife, a spoon, a fork. My sister concentrates as she makes sure every plate has a napkin, a cousin plops glasses down.

The table is loaded down with trays of fresh biscuits, three bowls of potato salad, platters of baked chicken, fried chicken, cold chicken, green jello with marshmallows and mayonnaise, pies and pitchers of lemonade. There is a promise of delicious cold vanilla ice cream tucked away in the new freezer. In the corner, a large pot spews the smell of brewing coffee for after dinner.

Like breakfast, there is talk, chatter, laughter, clanking silverware against plates. Challenges from the cousins as to who can catch the most fire flies. Empty canning jars with lids are plopped down in front of us kids, seven of us in all. With a sigh and smile from our parents, we’re released from the table. We pick up the canning jars and swarm out the door into the humid twilight. 

Yelling, screaming, giggles as we track the flying flickering diamonds of light. Shouts of “I caught one!” fill the hot moisture ladened air. Caught fire flies flicker in the jars that line the sidewalk as we take turns riding the bike and skating down the street. A couple of portly uncles stand at the bottom of the street to make sure we don’t surge out into oncoming traffic. As it gets darker, we play tag which turns into hide and seek, and eventually into kick the can. All games are called on account of the noise bothering the neighbors. Delicious cold ice cream over cherry pie ends the day.

All too soon it is over. Families drift away with promises of next year. I help Uncle George release the fire flies and we carefully climb the stairs to the porch with our hands full of canning jars.

Dad corrals us three kids into the car. He’s found a motel with air conditioning and swimming pool. The only motel like it in town.

“We can stay here,” Mom whines, “and it doesn’t cost anything to stay here.”

“You stay here. Talk as late as you want. The kids and I’ll be back for breakfast.” He says as he gets in to start the car. “Talk to your mother,” he advises through the open window, “and your aunt. You don’t get the chance very often.”

We are three tired kids slumped in the back seat of a ’56 Chevy station wagon as it melts into the night, headed for cool.