Called
my mother the other day. And she took off telling me a story.
Anyone
that knows my mother understands this idea. A delightful and wonderful
woman, if you engage her in conversation, she can make a cup of
coffee not only the highlight of your year, but something that
could last four or five hours. A very special woman.
She
also can get sidetracked. I am not kidding, exaggerating or making
this up. One day we were discussing her heading out to pick up
a prescription and landed in the middle of a conversation about
my favorite candy as a child.
As
we began talking that day, the subject was errands of the day.
The place she was headed for her prescription was the same drug
store that had previously been operated across the street from
its current location when I was growing up. And you know those
family neighborhood drug stores that serve a community for generations.
Pharmacy. Greeting cards. Areas featuring a small assortment of
office supplies, cleaning products, and so on. Type of place that
was the catch all for everything.
Prescription?
Neighborhood drug store.
Poster
board and glue for a school project? Neighborhood drug store.
Local
twice a week newspaper? Neighborhood drug store.
Band
aids? Neighborhood drug store.
Sure,
there were aisles you rarely ventured toward, and some you never
needed. But for the most part it was kind of the general store
of my youth. A little bit of everything on the other side of the
same door.
She
started with that prescription. That led to talking about the
pharmacist, and over to grabbing a sympathy card, and did I remember
when it used to be across the street and we picked out special
occasion cards for my grandparents, and eventually curled around
to asking if I remembered when we would go in when I was really
young and on most stops would be allowed to select one candy bar
for myself.
Decisions,
decisions, likely worthy of an essay all its own. But there you
have it, my mother moving from a prescription refill on Friday
back more than forty years to an eight-year-old weighing M&Ms
against Milky Ways, with the possibilities of the rarely selected
but always enjoyed other sweets sitting there on the shelves as
well.
On
the particular day that our essay begins, she was winding down
themes and shooting off on tangents. And it just so happened,
she was driving around the southern parts of Rhode Island, hitting
some landmarks, and eventually came back around to discussing
Gaspee Days.
For
those of you that aren’t connecting with Gaspee Days, it’s a local
celebration held in Rhode Island each year. Since everyone can
identify with a reason for holding an annual barbecue, Gaspee
Days tends to be a big local deal.
In
1772, a British ship, the HMS Gaspee, ran aground in Warwick.
While stranded, it was burned. This attack took place more than
a year before the Boston Tea Party.
That’s
a really simple explanation of events that are sometimes referred
to as the “first blow for freedom”, but in a way, I want to leave
it right there. First, because I’d love it if you wanted more
information and were motivated to investigate it on your own.
Second, because the Gaspee is not the central figure in this particular
effort.
My
mother will zip around and hit on touchstones. Occasionally it
means she’ll mention something like the Gaspee, and whether or
not you recall the history involved, she’ll keep moving along
as if you absolutely do.
At
times, she loves mentioning the candy store. The
candy store. It took me a couple of phone calls before I realized
that… and yeah, for me, DUH… she was talking about heading
out on a walk with my father, and just up the road from our house
was a place that we visited in the summers as kids because of
the selection of penny candy.
Candy
store aside, often her leading the conversation and quickly shifting
to different ground leads to moments where I get lost. Because
while I’m trying to figure out the church or farm or whatever
she’s referencing, she’s zipped past five other items and developed
two separate storylines that are running in parallel.
The
problem for me isn’t keeping up with her though. Usually, I actually
can. It’s that I get upset with myself for not recognizing some
of the things she mentions so casually and confidently. Rhode
Island isn’t exactly a huge state. And when I mention something
my mother might have mentioned to my wife, many times she recognizes
it immediately, and then turns to me with a look that suggests
surprise that I didn’t… well… yeah.
Many,
many years ago, I was having a conversation with one of the kids.
(It was either Jay or Justin, and I don’t want to embarrass Justin
by specifically naming him. Ok? Besides, I’d be willing to bet
our conversation sounds remarkably similar to many you can recall
in some fashion for yourself.)
We
were talking about schoolwork and memorizing things. And, darn
it, apparently it was hard. So, I asked him how hard it was to
memorize the button combinations to generate special results when
he was playing video games. And then I asked him if it was hard
to do math when he was adding up money we owed him for this or
that and arriving at a fairly grand total for a seven-year-old.
Sure appears to be a lot easier to remember things or do math
or whatever when you have an interest in the material.
Truth
be told though, I understand where Justin is coming from. I can
talk about things I know and love and understand. Given the right
circumstances, I’ll follow in my mother’s footsteps and weave
a connection between a backpack, a ten-year-old on a plane for
the first time, Disney World, and a sunrise stop along a back
road that connects highways at a North Carolina McDonald’s.
But
for all the strange trivia and assorted knowledge that has built
up from education and from experience, I can’t shake the things
that occasionally present as something I should know. Like the
story of a German submarine sunk near Block Island toward the
end of World War II.
Sounds
familiar. Also sounds vague enough that I don’t know if it is
familiar.
Looks
like I still have some homework left to do.