By Cathy Kabanuk
This was a combined assignment for Learning
Communities and Expressive Arts for Early Childhood Education classes.
Communities and Expressive Arts for Early Childhood Education classes.
With my oldest son at
an outdoor concert
Heartland values,
A simpler, trusting time.
A five-year-old wandering to the corner store
With a dime in her pocket for a loaf of bread.
I am from Lawrence Welk, can-can slips,
Poodle skirts and saddle shoes,
Roasting ears and roller skate keys.
I am from spring afternoons and summer evenings
Playing in the park with other kids
Without adult supervision.
“Be home for dinner”
Or “Be back by dark.”
Dennis the Menace could have been filmed in my town.
I am from Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans,
From M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E,
Beaver and Dobie Gillis,
And Dad changing the TV tubes.
I am from “use it up, wear it out,
Make it do or do without.”
Parents who had shoeboxes for bassinets
And remembered war rationing.
I am from concrete – lots of it,
And the backyard pool that was poured in sections
With leftovers from other people’s basements.
We are still as solid as the concrete
That provided our sustenance.
I am from ice cream trucks,
The milkman bringing milk in glass bottles,
Arguing with my brothers
Over who got to lick the cream off the cardboard stoppers
(When our mom wasn't looking).
I am from fried-eggs-on-the-sidewalk summers,
Midnight walks to cool off while it’s still 94 degrees
And 92% humidity;
Summer thunderstorms that flooded the streets in minutes,
And left as quickly as they arrived.
I am from tongue-frozen-to-the-flagpole winters,
Shortcuts to school through thigh-high, crusty black snow,
My brother climbing out an upstairs window
To shovel out the door.
I am from long autumns with heaps of leaves,
And tomato baseball after the first frost (don't ask...).
Endless sea of red in the streets
On Football Saturday - the state holiday.
Go Big Red.
I am from short springs nearly as hot as summers,
Peppered with occasional blizzards
Six hours later.
I am from summer camp and sunburns,
Canoe trips that nearly claimed my life and my brother's.
Incarcerated in the tent with my cousin during free time
To atone for our mischief.
I am from grilled cheese and fries at King’s drive in,
Or eat inside, table jukeboxes competing with each other:
Incense and Peppermint, and In-a-gadda-da-vida.
Drive-in movies,
Trying to keep warm, peering through the rain.
I am from black armbands and marches,
Friends, boyfriends and brothers watching the lottery.
The helicopter pilot struggling to put his life back together
After morgue duty.
In his words
(over his sixth beer and the pain it couldn't drown),
"Back and forth, back and forth,"
Corpses of comrades his only passengers.
Make love not war.
I am from Psychedelic Nights,
Drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll.
Friends and lovers who didn’t make it back.
Rest in peace, Tom. I’m sorry. We didn't know
Where that road led.
"She don't lie," Clapton promised. Yet her destruction is buried with you, and her ugly truth is buried deeply in my soul.
You would be proud of your sons. They didn’t follow in
Their parents’ footsteps.
I am from the Peace that passes all understanding;
The Hand that lifted me from a wild spiral into the abyss
And set my feet on solid ground.
I am from Motherhood.
I never knew that one could love, and hurt, so much.
If these walls could speak.
I am from the wind-up cake plate that played
Happy Birthday
Thirteen times each year.
The heart strings have stretched
From Lincoln, to Orlando, to Las Cruces,
To Bullhead City, to Gearhart,
And back to Lincoln.
They stretch, but they never break.
