Memories Monday

Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Picking wild strawberries in the grassy field at the edge of our church campgrounds, while we waited for my mom to finish doing whatever it was she did at Bible Camp. The strawberries were tiny, no bigger than a child's thumb, and we'd till them carefully into the pink styrofoam egg cartons we had brought along for just that purpose. On the ride home we'd sit as still as possible, in the backseat of our Volkswagen Beetle, the berries cradled in our laps.

Or my mom would send us out to the blueberry bushes at the back of our yard, by the shed/boathouse (it was just a little house where the former owner used to work on his boat, so we called it the boathouse.) With a coffee cup in one hand, or a tupperware bowl wedged against a hip, we'd circle the bushes, slapping away mosquitos, until we had enough and then run on up to the house, yelling,"We're done! We're done!"

Or balancing on the slopes of the enbankment that ran along the railroad tracks, where the huckleberries grew, way at the edge of our property. You had to go through the woods to get there. The huckleberry bushes would scratch your legs, and to keep your balance you had to hang onto a bush, making the actual picking of the berries rather difficult. It took forever to pick a whole cupful, mostly because it was just so tempting to stand there and eat whatever you had picked. That small sweet burst of blue. But huckleberries were the ultimate, the summer treasure. We'd carry our winnings back to the house, where my mom would gently wash them up and let them dry. After dinner we'd eat them with the Jell-o Instant Pudding she'd made (always vanilla) and forget about all the work it was to get them to the table.

From this memory I slide directly into another, and even though I try my best to shut the door and not let it fully out, it keeps coming and coming until I have to think about it. We used to play on the tracks, back there behind our property -- we liked to put pennies on the rails and see if the trains would flatten them (never happened, but we kept trying.) While waiting for the train to come we'd sit on the rails and look for "shiny stones" -- a certain kind of stone with mica in it, or hardened bits of tar that would break open and reveal a smooth glossy blackness. We'd sit there and forget about the train.

Until the day the train whistled, roared in our ears. I looked up and the train was so close, I could see the conductor. He had brown hair and a big 1970's moustache. And a cap, darkish material -- and then I jumped, and John and Jason jumped, and we landed in the rocks alongside the tracks and felt the train rush by.

I know we ran home, I know we told my mother right away, I know we were all crying. I don't remember if we got punished -- we must have, but I've forgotten all that. I let my mind go back to the enbankment, to the huckleberry bushes, to the coffee cup filled with the tiniest of berries -- and I walk back through the woods and leave all that had happened back there by the tracks, behind me.