remembering, and peanuts

Hamburger up at Five Guys (a franchise, too, but not so bad) today was delicious. I had Cajun fries (they use different potatoes each day and put which ones they are using up on the board)—and I sat at the table eating peanuts while I waited and kept thinking about what an old Southern snack they were.

And how hot it used to be in the back roads of the Chattahoochee Valley...

Back in those days when I was still a pup and had no identity or even vision—those blind, unopened eyes pups and kittens have...

Wandering about under that hot, hot sun—used to radiate back up from the very ground...

But you remember.

Oh me.

To have those days again, and all the people who used to be in them, and peanuts and a Nehi grape (a rare soda, in my life), and all the red clay dust a sun could bake to walk across...

A fishing pole.

Grandaddy to put the worms on for me.

Grandma's sour cream pound cake, with anise across the top. Shhh. Fish won't bite if you make too much noise...

And Granddaddy Dalton whistling...

The funny cars—that peculiar smell of an old car, and its upholstery. Especially in the hot summer.

And there I was in all of it, a long-legged kid not even dreaming of anything like growing up and heading out into a life...