It was hot today and I remembered hot nights in Illinois.
I was a kid. Two parents, 4 kids. We had one air conditioner, in our rec room. Recreational room. It was at the back of the house, with windows out to the backyard. Winters, we used to roll newspapers in the rec room, roll them up and tie them, then burn them for heat. My hands got black from the newsprint.
Out past our yard and garden was an alley. Beyond the alley: a strip of fast food places, hardware stores, and grocery stores. The Dairy Queen where my little sister used to beg for ice cream, we found out years later.
Hot nights in Illinois I used to have trouble sleeping. Too hot. I'd get up, trudge around past the stairs and into the old bathroom. I ran cold water over my wrists, trying to cool down. Cold water.
School field trips. I remember the shrine in Nauvoo, the place where Joseph Smith died, the leader of a cult. There was a piece of glass over a bit of floorboard, with his blood beneath. I squinted, couldn't really see the blood.
And the town where Abraham Lincoln grew up. That was cool. I liked thinking of him reading and studying by firelight.
All enveloped by corn fields. Rows and rows of green spikes.
Those hot nights in Illinois.
I was a kid. Two parents, 4 kids. We had one air conditioner, in our rec room. Recreational room. It was at the back of the house, with windows out to the backyard. Winters, we used to roll newspapers in the rec room, roll them up and tie them, then burn them for heat. My hands got black from the newsprint.
Out past our yard and garden was an alley. Beyond the alley: a strip of fast food places, hardware stores, and grocery stores. The Dairy Queen where my little sister used to beg for ice cream, we found out years later.
Hot nights in Illinois I used to have trouble sleeping. Too hot. I'd get up, trudge around past the stairs and into the old bathroom. I ran cold water over my wrists, trying to cool down. Cold water.
School field trips. I remember the shrine in Nauvoo, the place where Joseph Smith died, the leader of a cult. There was a piece of glass over a bit of floorboard, with his blood beneath. I squinted, couldn't really see the blood.
And the town where Abraham Lincoln grew up. That was cool. I liked thinking of him reading and studying by firelight.
All enveloped by corn fields. Rows and rows of green spikes.
Those hot nights in Illinois.
