Friday, 13 April 2007

Georgia Summers

By Chancy at driftwoodinspiration

Summer is here again, drenching and surrounding everything and everyone it touches with the damp heaviness of heat and humidity. The scent of honeysuckle is in the air.

I remember the summers of my childhood when there was no air conditioning. We dressed in light, sleeveless, batiste blouses and shorts. We sweated and drank sweet lemonade. We went barefoot all summer except at church, where we fanned ourselves with hand-held Bernstein's funeral parlor fans. At play, we hosed each other down with the garden hose. We walked to town to the picture show and on the way back stopped for an ice cream cone. "Eat it fast before it melts", my friend would say.

The ice truck came lumbering down our street with big blocks of ice. The broad muscled driver lifted the ice blocks with black tongs and carried them into our kitchen to the wooden ice box. When he returned to the truck he treated the waiting children to slivers of ice which he chipped off a block.

The evenings were cool and the lightening bugs were blinking brightly before we deposited them in our glass jars with holes punched in the lids. Some nights we played "kick the can" in the streets which were illuminated by street lights. Back then there were few cars to dodge.

Now, many years later, it is summer again and I am all grown up. I am alone in our house. My husband is out of town. All the lights go out during a bad electrical storm. It is dark and eerily quiet without the steady hum of the air conditioner, refrigerator and other electrical appliances.

Strangely, I am not frightened to be alone in the dark, empty house. I grab a flashlight and get ready for bed. In our bedroom I lift the shade for added light and peer out. In the pitch-black darkness the lightening bugs seem magical, blinking by the hundreds. They are vivid points of light silhouetted against the black velvet night. I sit for awhile and enjoy this calm, quiet moment of beauty.

I awake the next morning to the sound of a man's voice coming from the kitchen. This frightens me a little as I know I am alone. I get up and pad down the hall and as I draw nearer I realize it is the voice of President George H.W. Bush speaking. This is spooky, I think. But the simple explanation is this. The automatic clock radio had turned itself on when the electricity came back after the storm.

I walk into the kitchen and say "Hello Mollie" to my 10-year-old Springer Spaniel dog who has been sleeping in her bed. After I have my breakfast, I reset all the digital clocks through out the house. It looks like rain and is still very hot and humid but I take Mollie for her walk anyway. After 10 years of almost daily walks she expects it.

That night, while we are away at a dinner party, another intense electrical storm occurs and lightening strikes our house starting a rapidly spreading fire with terrible smoke damage. The worst part is in the kitchen area where Mollie, our dog, sleeps.

She dies from smoke inhalation.

The fire chief tells us had we been home, we probably would have died also from the smoke as we opened the kitchen door to rescue Mollie. We move out for six months and rebuild the house.

A year later, when my grief has subsided, we bury Mollie's ashes in the back garden under a Japanese maple tree.

Life goes on.

The Georgia summer is here again, drenching and surrounding everything and everyone it touches with the damp heaviness of heat and humidity. The scent of honeysuckle is in the air.

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

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