A few nights ago I woke up a little after midnight and couldn’t go back to sleep, I was in the middle of a good dream but then my eyes opened and the dream vanished.
I tossed and turned for a while, finally I got up and headed for the kitchen. There were leftovers in the fridge from supper, black-eye peas and cornbread.
I reached for one of our vintage glasses from the cupboard. Jilda inherited those from her mother and they are heavy enough to use as weapons. In fact her mother once told her if I ever got out of line she should clobber me with one. That’s a thought that has stayed with me.
I crumbled a wedge of cornbread in the glass and filled it with cold buttermilk. I stood there and ate by the refrigerator light. A habit I picked up from my dad years ago.
I thought of my first memory of my dad. It was at an old house we lived in Sloss with a front porch high off the ground, but the back porch sat so low that only dogs and small children could get under it.
That memory was of a day when dad was looking for the rubber pull-handle that attached to the end of the crank cord on his Wizard outboard motor. It was spring and he was getting his boat ready for fishing. He had looked high and low for the handle but it had vanished. I was around four years old, shoeless, shirtless and skinny as could be. When dad told me what he was looking for, I knew where it was.
I scooted underneath the low porch like a chipmunk with an acorn. About midway under the house the pull handle was lying next to my Army men and an old brick. I guess one of our hounds had snatched it up and used it as a chew toy.
When I scurried from under the house, my dad smiled broadly at me. He reached down and picked me up and tossed me into the air, saying, “That’s my buddy.” I had made my dad proud.
The memory made me smile. I rinsed my glass, placed it in the sink and went back to bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. That memory was much better than any dream I might have had.
