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THE RECESSION was over by the mid ‘50s. Dad had weathered those hard times by acquiring a job as a machinist in a major city. He’d traveled far to the job. He’d driven hundreds of miles to stay a week at a time in that distant place. Dad drove to work each Sunday afternoon, one way, in a ’49 Plymouth. He wore the flathead down with mileage accrued. The car began to smoke each time it came to a stop. Then, with some 40W oil gotten from a gas station by the shop where he worked, Dad would fill up the crankcase and head back home on Friday afternoon. But as times got better, in the spring of ‘56, Dad did the unthinkable for his thrifty soul… he bought a car. “Come and see”, my father said of his first new car. A brand new convertible sat lingering at the curb. He drove Mom home from the dealer with all the windows rolled down… in the new automotive marvel. Marvelous it was. The car had three colors and an AM radio! It was a revolutionary convertible that didn’t need your help to open the top. Proudly, my father said it had a four barrel carburetor that sat astride a big V-8. Dad touted to Mom.., “Now I can keep up with traffic on the boulevard.” Times were indeed getting better. That same year saw our family move into a new house. Our home had been built by my uncle and my father, and now was being finished inside. Extravagant with its three |
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bedrooms, the home had a real driveway where the new convertible could be parked in front of its own garage door. “Come and see!” I yelled to my younger sister… for I’d been exploring the tiny, spring-fed stream that flowed alongside the new house. I‘d watched something tiny skinny under a rock. With my sister peering around my hip in suspense, I flipped the rock over. Revealed beneath was a sight neither of us had ever thought possible. A surprised salamander hid |
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there, frozen in fright in the subtle light filtering through the trees. Immediately, my sister screamed at my mother… “Mom.., come and see!” My mother, who felt she had lived in our apartment far too long, had been inspecting her first yard. She came over to look. She said, “It’s just a lizard. Leave it alone. It’ll give ya warts.”, and she went back to her tour. |
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Come and See! Sometimes how you see a thing, depends on where you stand. |
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Changed, it was no longer green, the color was a brown or pink. |
