The other day my friends and I, a total of seven of us, were stranded on a boat on the Chicago River. After the police AND the US Coast Guard both came to our rescue, I was the only sober one willing to ride to pick up our friend's car almost 3 miles down the street. As I was driving alone to pick up my friends, I thought of old memories. I generally always think of my past when silence and my mind are alone. Sometimes happy, sad, recently, childhood. Just memories I'll try to remember so I make sure my life isn't lost within the thrills of wanting to be happy and "grown up". Two extreme memories came to mind.
It's just, I never know which one to say first though, the happy or the sad?
My sad memory:
My father would always convince me and my brothers to help him on the farm every Saturday morning or on summer vacations. Our bribe would be with promising us ice cream at some local gas station on the way home. Working hours in the hot sun, driving around a tractor and pulling out weeds for some 30 cent ice cream at a gas station? Whether it was the guilt of our father actually asking us a favor or the sake we were that naive into thinking ice cream was worth it all, we'd go.
Some of my best childhood memories started at my father's farm. I learned how to drive in a moving vehicle for the first time in a tractor. We'd run to the next farm over and chase the peacocks into the trees, eat the fruit from the trees, pee by bushes and hope no hillbillies would see us from their houses.
So anyway, I remember one time being there, my father's crops didn't develop and produce the way he expected. I remember something about the rain and how it was too much water for the season on what he was trying to grow. This Korean yellow fruit. Tasted like a hybrid of an apple, pear, and honeydew. It was a smaller melon, you could eat the outside, and the inside was white and juicy. I remember my mother picking up one, dusting it off with her hands and shirt, biting into it and handing it to me. My brothers and I promised to come back and help my father harvest what we could salvage and just keep for us instead of trying to sell the sad amount we'd find. So the next Saturday, my brothers and I clothed in our "farm clothes" went in and packed a large ice cooler with whatever fruit we would find. My father expected a little more so his trailer he brought behind the car was now just empty space. He insisted on strapping the large cooler on the trailer since we had no room in our car. My big brother fought him on this being a terrible idea, but there's no winning with my father. (He was the stubborn, hard headed kind.) Not even 20 minutes down the street, my father takes a turn at an intersection, and off goes the cooler. Breaks into two and all the melon flies out on the street and smashes everywhere.
At that moment, you think, should I cry, say sorry, ignore the whole situation and stay quiet? My father pulls over immediately, gets out of the car, slowly walks into the street and picks up the cooler pieces. My big brother says something like, "don't you guys dare say anything" as my father opens the door and sadly gets into his seat. We drive in silence and I look at my defended father with so much sympathy, I truly had nothing to say despite my brother. My father gave up farming after this, we still have the acres of land, but I know there's nothing there.
My happy memory,
My mother loved the beach. Palm trees, shells, everything and anything would remind you of the ocean and it's surroundings. I remember she would always want me to go to the beach and shell hunt with her. She would collect her favorite shells, drill holes in them and hang them in her car. It was dorky, innocent, but that was her.
So, with that back story, she was a super social, well liked person at her shop. Her customers would give her random gifts and food all the time, it was a pretty common thing to see when I would come to the store. One day I walked to the refrigerator and I see a new magnet on the freezer door. It was a beach scenery with glued on sand and baby shells, above it the words were printed, "LIFE'S A BEACH". And I couldn't help but laugh out loud and ask my mom if she knew what it meant. Her response? "Yes Esther, it means life is beautiful like the beach." In that moment, my heart sunk into my stomach, I smiled and said, "Yeah mom." She didn't understand the play on words with the cuss word bitch. I always think of this memory and giggle to myself. My mom was the best. My diamond in the rough.
