Pennies, Bullets and Bookmarks

Have you ever noticed that as you grow older you life is full of little “bookmarks” which remind you of events that have danced across the years of your life?  Smells that bring back childhood moments and emotions as if you had just experienced them?  Songs that bring and ache to your chest, or a smile to your face, a subtle souvenir from a day long gone?  

These little bookmarks have sometimes been wonderful for me, like a scrapbook I carry in my head and heart to ensure that memories are not just some distant dusting waiting to be swept away. But there are moments, sad and often scary-gray-wish-I-could-let-this-one-go moments, which often creep up when they are least welcome or expected.  

I was seven years old the summer that my cousin died.  We hadn’t been that close, my parents were divorced for three years by then, and I saw her only during my summer visits to Texas.  We were the same age, less two months, but she somehow seemed to be years ahead of me.  I mean, sure, we played together during the rare weekend my father took me to his brother’s home. But the main reason she played with me was because the small town she lived in afforded her so little entertainment that she was willing to spare a day or two dealing with me, despite my immaturity.  My uncle lived in one of those towns that could slip by unnoticed if you glanced at the map at the same moment you came upon it.  Grain silos graced one side of the two lane road, with the railroad tracks snug against the backs of them, and the town with it’s three whole streets stretched out like cracker crumbs strewn carelessly on the other side of the street.

The smell of cattle and chickens was pervasive, wafting across the miles of bean, corn, and tomato crops to conceal any other scent that might be so ridiculous as to perfume the air. The summers unyielding heat only compounded the effect, magnifying the manure odor as the day progressed until by nightfall it seemed to cling to my clothes.