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Summers in Florida
I don’t know why I remember something so uneventful as sitting on Aunt Effie’s
screened-in front porch at dusk. The damp evenings were almost as warm as the days. Thank
goodness the porch was screened in; otherwise, without that protection from the mosquitos, my
sister and I may have been eaten alive as we slept.
Rocking chairs, the old-fashioned kind with the high backs and enough room in the seat,
perpendicularly lined two sides of Aunt Effie’s house. My sister Shari and I had so much fun
listening to her talk with Mima, my grandmother. Mima used to smoke and I would get so
mesmerized by the “trail” of light the lit end would create. Between Mima’s trail of light,
listening to the high-pitched little voice my 4’11” Aunt Effie, the sounds of the crickets, and the
light show that the fireflies gave us, Shari and I were always entertained.
Every now and then my mother would speak but mostly she would listen. I’m sure that
she was thinking about her father, my grandfather and brother of Aunt Effie. I barely
remember him because I was only three when his ship disappeared. I do remember the last
time that I saw him, though. Mima drove us all to the Port of Beaumont where his ship, the
Sulphur Queen, was docked. I later found out that he was supposed to be on leave but filled in
for a fellow mate who had taken ill. The ship was enormous! My mother and Uncle Buddy
walked with my grandfather onto the ship while Shari and I stayed in the parking lot with
Mima—she could not bear to say goodbye so she never went onto the ship. It seemed like we
were there a long time, just waiting.
Mom was a Daddy’s Girl from what I understand. She has a gentle, quiet soul, a typically
sensitive artist. Losing her father and divorcing her husband, especially at such a young age, had
to have been almost too much to emotionally handle. Southern women were different back then
because their lives always seemed to cater to their husbands and taking care of their children.
However, she was determined to finish her Master’s Degree in English and when that happened,
she packed the three of us up and moved us out west to Tucson in the summer of 1966. That
was the beginning of my “wonder years.”
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