August 12th, 2008

I need to spend some time today working on promotions for the frontier schoolmarm book due out next month, the Thunder Over the Prairie book and the annual Christmas in Bethlehem program, but I am having a hard time tearing myself away from all the historical information I picked up at the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum. I’ve been reviewing testimony from Buffalo Bill’s valet about a woman named Bessie Isabelle who he had seen on more than one occasion in Cody’s hotel rooms across the country. It’s amazing how much private life is made public. Although, I think Cody wouldn’t have minded the sorted details being brought to the forefront of thought if it meant increased ticket sales to the Wild West Show. I was eating lunch at a great Mexican restaurant in Cody and trying not to feel sorry for myself because I was dining alone, when I got to thinking about all the times I had meals with my grandparents when I was a girl. And with a certain pristine rush many wonderful childhood memories flooded into consciousness. I took out a pad of paper and started jotting down what was running through my mind. It’s the smell of freshly mowed grass, fried chicken and Avon’s Occur bath powder. It’s the distant sound of a marching band, meal-time conversation and my grandmother loudly sipping her ice tea. It’s the anticipation of a high school football game and selecting just the right something to wear in case just the right someone sees you. It’s dust from a plowed field and a cold bite in the air to remind you that winter will be again. It’s popcorn, funnel cakes and tightly swirled ice cream cones. It’s crawling into your summer pajamas and curling up on the couch next to your grandmother, while your grandfather sits in his chair under a pole of ridiculous round lights, reading a newspaper. It’s laying your head in your grandmother’s lap and then falling asleep in the middle of the Johnny Carson Show. It’s comfort and home, infatuation and youth. You return for that moment, that memory, that hope. What you see with 14 year-old eyes cannot be recaptured with 47 year-old vision. It’s lost, but remembered. Longed for, but never realized again. Still you go back on the off chance you can catch a glimpse of what was and savor the experience as children rarely can.