Writer’s block comes now and then, but when the ice breaks
the water flows. I just now finished my
latest contribution to the paper, only three days late. I had an idea early on, something about
grocery stores, but stress at work and taxes have taken root in my brain, and I
could not put my thoughts together. Last
night I was feeling the guilt of missing my deadline so I tossed out the
grocery store idea and started writing a mush fest about the upcoming weddings
of two of my nieces. I wrote about knowing
them as children and how proud I’m going to be on their big days. I waxed poetic of their beauty and how they
will shine as brides and how I will cry, boo-hoo-hoo ----- give me a
break. No one wants to read that. Well,
maybe their mothers do, but not the general paper-subscribing public. I’ll save that mushiness for this outlet and
for a later date.
This morning I was thinking about all of this whilst eating
my honey-nut shredded wheat with almost soured milk and the grocery store idea
came back, probably out of necessity.
Then a thought came that told me I was on the right track and I sat down
and pounded it out (cheap cliche) in about thirty minutes. The irony is the thought that inspired me had
nothing all to do with what I wrote.
Yes, the story for the paper ended up being about grocery stores, but it was not the story I had intended to write. You can read it next month, that is if the paper and I are still in a relationship in a month. Meanwhile...
What I wanted to write was about my childhood days in
grocery stores. My mother would drag me
around Winn-Dixie until I was a whimpering puddle begging for pennies for the
gumball machine. She would never let me
have a whole gumball, not because of how bad they were for my teeth but because
she feared choking. She would bite it or
crush it in before she would let me have it.
In her mind a gumball would inevitably get stuck in my throat and she
would have to pull my arms over my head in hopes of dislodging it. The Heimlich maneuver had not yet been
invented and back slapping and arms-over-head were the lifesaving actions of
the day.
If my mother was taking her elderly cousin, Josephine,
shopping we would go to McCaffrey’s because that is where she wanted to
go. I only have three distinct memories
of McCaffrey’s: 1) it was far from home 2) it smelled like rotting produce and
3) when I left there the bottoms of my feet were absolutely filthy. Now, why I was barefoot in a grocery store is
beside the point. That was before the
“no shoes no service” days as well. Come
to think of it that is probably why I detest going barefoot to this day. It was all because of McCaffrey’s dirty
floors! Oh, make that four things. I just remembered the McCaffrey’s Showtime,
30 minutes (or less) of local late-night television musical entertainment. The first time I saw Walter Brewer in public,
white hair shining, I thought he was a true celebrity.
The other thing I wanted to say about grocery stores but
didn’t is about my experience working in one.
It was a short-lived career, two days max, but it was only supposed to be
a temporary gig anyway. My oldest friend
and travelling partner’s father owned his own grocery store. It was from him I learned the meaning of hard
work and that Sunday is truly a day of rest.
If I was at their house during the week I would see him for an hour or
so the whole day. He worked from
the dark of the morning to the dark of the evening every day but Sunday, taking
a break for lunch. Sundays, after church
only, were his play days. That is when
he would take us on extended road trips throughout the South Mississippi
countryside, walking through the woods, fishing or all of the above on the same
day. For reasons of his own, probably
for his own entertainment, he enlisted us to work at the store a couple of
days. Well, maybe it was just one
day. We trudged in with him at 5:30 or earlier,
and spent the day stocking shelves, pricing cans, and doing whatever else he
told us to do. I earned $10 and learned
the lesson that I never wanted to work in a grocery store.
But none of this has anything to do with the thought that
sat me in this chair and commanded me to write.
The thought was this: I know now
why my mother sends me pennies from heaven.
It’s to make up for all of those crushed gumballs. With every penny she’s saying it’s okay, have
the gumball, take a risk, you’re not going to choke. And if you do throw your arms over your head,
you’ll survive.
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