Tired of feeling like someone

Tired of feeling like someone cleaned
my throat with a choreboy, I went to my local discount drugstore and purchased
some cough drops. A package of useless, tasty ones for the children and
chloraseptic "lozenges" for myself. I popped one into my mouth and was
immediately transported to 1976. My grandparents (step actually, but when you're
an attention starved kid, who counts that?) lived right off the main highway
through a dinky nowhere town. I would spend two weeks every summer there. It was
the heaven. A very humid heaven. As my grandparents didn't have central air or a
window unit, we opened the large windows every night just as dark came on. We
sat in the living room watching the 10 o'clock news. I lay on my side tracing
the patterns of the plush two tone carpet they had installed two years before.
The creaking of my grandfather's swivel rocker along with the droning
newscasters voice made me sleepy. I always struggled between my need for sleep
and my desire to stay awake long enough to feign it and be carried to my bed;
the sheets cool and window reporting the occasional passing of a truck. I slept
in a twin bed at the foot of my grandparents bed. Nestling into the feather down
pillow, I would listen to my grandmother wind the clock and turn a dial finding
her favorite a.m. country station. Between the sounds of the southern night, the
smell of menthol cough drops, and Hank Williams, I would roll slowly down the
hill of slumber. I always awakened early. My grandmother got up very early each
morning to feed Miss Kitty, put the percolator on, get the morning paper. I
liked walking through the dark house and finding the swinging kitchen door
closed with a glow of light outlining it. When I walked through that door I was
greeted with a smile, given a seat at the tiny table squeezed into a nook in the
corner, and offered a tiny cup of coffee, mostly cream. She always took my
request for breakfast and did it exactly like I wanted: two fried eggs,
old-fashioned toast, biscuits with honey, and the coldest glass of milk. If it
was Saturday, she would offer me Rice Krispies loaded with sugar in a big
plastic cup and I would be allowed to sit in front of the t.v. in the front room
watching The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and other cartoon reruns on the cable
channels. Most mornings I could hardly keep my eyes open, but my heart longed to
have her to myself for those few minutes in the summer mornings. I never had
anyone's direct attention in such a concerned and loving way, so she easily drew
me into her heart. Lozenge now small enough to crack with my teeth and chew up,
so memory is now over. Thanks for the trip Chloraseptic!