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2003-03-05 - 3:10 p.m.

I don’t cat nap. If the sun’s up, I’m up.

Today, because of an overnight snow storm, I had an unexpected day off. I didn’t sleep well last night, and at 4:30 I finally gave up and got up, made coffee and took a shower. The call telling me I had a holiday from work came at 5:20. By noon I was heavy-lidded and sluggish, so I decided to try the luxury of catching a quick forty winks. The fireplace was cozy, so I brought my pillow to the couch and curled up under the afghan.

My head hit the pillow and my mind took off on a journey through time. Although I’m often dumbfounded by my roaming mind, I rarely give time to analyzing why it goes traipsing off in peculiar directions. To do so might frighten me or send me screaming to the nearest mental health facility. Sometimes I call it back and tuck it safely away, other times I let it go schlepping around. Today I let it go and I was back to forgotten times from my childhood.

I remembered the pair of flying squirrels my parents had allowed me to order by mail. I would argue with anyone who would say I was a spoiled only child; I wasn’t, my parents did say no to me many times. There were other times, however, when they said yes to one of my whims. I’m sure, after the fact, they probably thought no would’ve been the best answer. The flying squirrels debacle was probably one of those times. In the back of some magazine I’d found an ad, for so many dollars and a few more dollars for shipping and handling, I could have a pair of small squirrel pets. I sent my money off, Dad built a cage with a hollow log for their nest, and we waited for the little animals to arrive.

They came nestled in a coffee can covered in a mess screen and full of saw dust. I ripped the screen off and dug through the saw dust. One squirrel escaped and disappeared; we managed to keep the other one in the can and transfer it to the cage. It immediately skittered into the log—where it stayed. Flying squirrels are nocturnal, so I had to creep out to the cage with a flashlight at night to see it. The squirrel, responsive to light, hightailed it to its log home. I can count on one hand the number of times I saw my squirrel pet.

Like many Midwestern families in the late 50s and early 60s, we had the Grit delivered--this is probably where I found the ad for the tiny disappearing pets. Thinking back on the squirrels and the Grit also brought back memories of the little paper delivery man. Gene had the body of a undersized pre-teen, but his wrinkled and leathery face was that of an old man. He rode a beat-up black Schwinn bike, his canvas paper carrier looped over the handle bars, and every week he would go door to door selling his papers. Everyone in town knew Gene, and nearly everyone in town purchased his paper.

My mind was skipping along and digging out other forgotten memories; I had given up on my afternoon siesta and was having fun rediscovering relics from my childhood. Then I made a mistake that killed all the fun from forty odd years ago. I opened my eyes and asked myself: “Where in the hell did this stuff come from?”

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