I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled
~ T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Hmmm, when I grow old and wear the bottom of my trousers rolled, will that pocketful of hallowed childhood memories still endure in my failing mind?
Memory Time Capsule: Escaping from the rabble of everyday life to the vacant field just down the street. Wedge shaped lot on the corner of Alma Street and Parkview Road. A world unto itself for an introverted boy with a mystical connection to nature.
A place to pick wild strawberries and savor the sweet-sour taste. Catch grasshoppers and put them in a jar with air holes punched in the lid. Gaze in wonder, fear and awe at the deep ditch filled to overflowing with throbbing water from the spring rains.
Memory Time Capsule: Trepidation in my heart as I scanned the railroad tracks. A quick dash across and a sigh of relief. Down the slope to Brook Pond. A small and in every way ordinary pond but somehow legendary to me.
Teeming with tadpoles. Deep enough to drown in. Who knows what might lie at the bottom? Mysteries untold and never to be revealed.
Memory Time Capsule: Up with the sun. Excitement aching in my bones at the day ahead. Heading out of town on Mud Street. The obligatory stop at the general store – a throwback to simpler times with its sagging front step and worn wooden floors.
Buying dew worms at the same house. Arriving at Waterford Ponds with breathless anticipation. Blooms of lily pads. Swamp edges with the skeleton stumps of trees. Fat bass just waiting to be caught.
Memory Time Capsule: The annual rite of autumn. A crisp chill in the air. The leaves in the Maples burning red, orange and gold. The agonizingly long drive to Norfolk County Agricultural Fair.
The midway with its barking carnies. Prize winning apples, every variety of squash and gargantuan pumpkins in the food building. Musty, rich manure smell of the animal building. Prize winning steers already sold and soon to be slaughtered. Once a year odyssey that never lost its sheen.
Metaphors for the child in me that will never quite grow up. Oh, if life could only be that simple and precocious again. Perhaps, when I wear the bottom of my trousers rolled and my mind wanders, I will escape into the mists of memory and revel again in the simple pleasures of childhood infatuation.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
~ Subscribe to “Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm” at its’ internet home www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2. Instructions for subscribing are provided in the “Subscribe to this Blog: How To” instructions page in the right sidebar. If you’re reading this post on another social networking site, come back regularly to my page for postings once a week..
Tags: Brook Pond · memories · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Norfolk County Fair · T.S. Eliot · Waterford Ponds1,580 Comments
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