Don't Blink

Sometimes you can close your eyes and remember times long ago as if they were just yesterday.  The smell of frying chicken always takes me back to the 1960's, to a time when Mom would fry chicken to take with us to swim meets.  When I smell chicken frying, I close my eyes, and I can almost feel the summer breeze, and smell the chlorine, and hear the starters pistol.  I can see my little brother, standing on the starting blocks, looking over at Mom and winking, giving her the 'ok' sign.

Yesterday, I spent some time looking at a small plastic football.  It's a New Orleans Saints football from 1970.  Archie signed it.  Mom kept it on display as if it were a Holy Relic, which, I guess in a sense, it is.  Mom never attended Ole Miss, but Ole Miss never had a more loyal fan.  We all lived and died Ole Miss football in the Archie years, and Mom was one of the people who elevated Ole Miss Tailgating to the high art that it is today.  I can not look at silver candelabras without remembering them on white table clothes beneath the giant Oak trees of the Grove, and I can't visit the Grove without remembering Mom.

Mom grew up dirt poor in a struggling little town in an impoverished Mississippi county, but despite that, she had a vision.   They ate what they grew in the garden, wore clean clothes, and had perfect manners, and she dreamed of being an airline stewardress, which in those days, ment you had to be a Registered Nurse.  After high school, she left the dusty roads of the Mississippi hill country behind her, and went to the big city, Memphis, and became a nurse.  She never became a stewardress, but she did meet a handsome young doctor.

Mom's been gone three years this summer.  I can close my eyes, and I can still see her.  In our living room, we have most of the furnature from the Den at Mom and Dad's house.  In the fall, we sometimes sit in the living room, enjoying a roaring fire in the fire place watching football games.  Sometimes, if you look closely at the couch, the recliner, and the gold chair, you can see Mom, Dad, Coachie, and Miss Dot, smiling and laughing and cheering the Rebels.  Don't blink.  They'll all be gone, and all you'll have will be memories and smiles.

I hope you called your momma yesterday.