Of Thunderstorms, Beer Signs, & Killer Vine

Wednesday, March 8, 2006

[7:01am] Collette lay in bed early that morning to hear a great roar of thunder at 5:50. It sent delightful shivers up her spine – perhaps the best sound in the world. Growing up in the Snicketts’ house meant that one automatically loved thunderstorms. And nothing was more exciting than gathering everything left out in the yard and running to take an evening shower and get off the phonebefore the lightening came in. Fantastic stuff.

It was a rainy day, a gray day. And on the way over to the house, Collette had the car and found herself splashing once again through the lamb-shaped puddle on Lafayette.

Inside, Rose was wearing Great Grandpa’s pocket watch around her neck for some unknown reason, along with an Army veteran cap, as opposed to her usual white “Pickle Factory” cap from a thrift store in Chicago. Wallace owned the same cap in black.

For the rest of the day, Collette read on eschatology, an amazingly frustrating study, and she stopped half-way through the book and decided to give her much-strained eyes a good rest. Meanwhile, Rose stuffed Snuggles in the potato bin in her room and there was another game of Life for Collette, Frances, and Linnea. Rose also gave Collette two small old wooden drawer knobs from her desk.

Ah… Atlanta, Georgia. Two weeks in the heart of Gone with the Wind land. It was a different sort of vacation, however, for Dad would be working the whole time while they were there – two weeks. So essentially it was a business trip for Dad and a pleasure-trip for Grandma Combs, Mom, and the five kids. It was, indeed, the longest trip in which they had participated and it seemed to Collette that it had taken only one day to get there, after a quick stop in Alabama at a large executive building where Dad picked up a key for something.

That first night in Atlanta brought several memories for her – the traffic and night lights of the congested highways, where Mom anxiously attempted to keep up with Dad between the cars. Two cars were necessary, naturally, on this particular trip. And upon finally arriving all in one piece at the timeshare, Dad brought in sacks of delicious fried chicken and biscuits from a place which apparently remained open till ten or eleven at night, which Collette thought was quite a novelty at the time. And there was a viewing of Drums Along the Mohawk, which was on television. It seemed to her one of the best meals she had ever eaten. Of course when a young one is famished from a long drive, anything will likely taste heavenly.

Those two weeks brought several interesting excursions. One of those was the completely new experience of the laundromat. Never before had Collette stepped foot inside such a shop. And they all found it quite amusing to dispense quarters into the slots and watch the laundry tumble through a glass door. Collette and Carrie also both had their hair cut while in Atlanta. She remembered the hairdresser – a small soft-spoken Oriental lady. She cut their hair to about their shoulders and clipped a mess of side-swept bangs which would have been quite becoming if Collette had known how to continue styling them, as had the Asian woman after cutting her hair. Apparently she and Carrie must have been very stylish upon receiving the cuts. For back home at Sunday School the following week, Collette’s fifth grade teacher said to the entire class, girls and boys:

“Well, I don’t see an engagement ring on her finger yet.”

Collette knew she turned four shades of red, which was not uncommon. But it was an exceptional compliment (in her mind) to a ten year old, never the less.

But perhaps what was more interesting than anything else to that point, was having dinner at the Mellow Mushroom. More than likely, Grandma was the one who found it. Grandma always did find the interesting things. The Mellow Mushroom – a small sit-down pizzeria in a shopping plaza near the laundromat. Collette could still somewhat picture the little smiling mushroom on the sign above the door. Inside, while waiting for their pizza, the kids began to look around. Collette couldn’t remember who brought it to Mom’s attention first. But suddenly they were all whispering to one another and pointing at the walls.

“Beer signs!”

To be sure, as they looked from wall to wall, the number of beer signs was increasing at every glance. Now, at the age of ten, beer signs were taboo. Anything hinting at the “devil’s drink” was an abomination. And they suddenly felt as though they were in a very bad place. But Mom and Grandma were laughing, laughing very hard. And soon, instead of feeling as though the devil had graced their dinner, they began nearly shouting with laughter, counting the beer signs. With every new count to their list, the laughter increased. And in the end, although Collette could not recall how many neon signs were added to their list, she was surprised they had not been dismissed, without their pizza, for disturbing the peace.

Perhaps the most amazing thing of the trip, however, was the killer vine. Perhaps there was an actual name for the foul weed, but killer vine was the name given to it by the natives. Everywhere they looked in Atlanta, the green vine crawled, covering: telephone poles (in fact, there wasn’t a bare pole to be seen), signs, buildings, fences, walls, benches – everything was covered in the deadly wrapping vine. It grew rapidly and ate through mortar and brick. The people hated it. Carrie wanted to bring back several lengths of it and plant it in the backyard. Mom was adamantly against such an idea and instead, Collette received a silk version for her birthday from Grandma.

Another experience of the two weeks brought them into their first contact with Krispy Kreme. No one in St. Louis (except Aunt Julia) had ever heard of Krispy Kreme. It was a novelty. And they just happened to be near a Krispy Kreme donut factory. It was a gray day and they hauled themselves inside for an official tour of the place. The aromas were simply heavenly. Collette had never been in such a grand place of sugar-ness. The tour kept them riveted on the little conveyor-belts and machinery. And they had nearly reached the end, being promised a rich golden-glazed donut apiece, when it happened – Rose went down. And she went down hard. The whole crowd turned around to gasp. The chubby six year old had walked right into a patch of slick donut glaze; (apparently one of the machines was leaking). She had gone down flat on her bum, and there she sat in the glaze, looking as though she were going to cry. But everyone else thought it was hysterical, naturally. Mom pulled her up out of the mess and her tears were soon remedied with a delicious round of warm heavenliness and a paper hat. Later, after ordering several boxes, they pulled into an ancient cemetery of be-lichened tombstones and emerald green growing things, here and there. And under storm-threatening skies, they munched their donuts and drank chocolate milk.

Before their stay in Atlanta had come to a close, however, there was time to visit North Carolina. And this time, Dad accompanied them on the journey. They stayed the night in a hotel right by the gray-sanded, gray-skied, gray-watered beach. Collette loved it and collected shells with Carrie in the wind of an early autumn. There was a boat ride later, which was a thrill altogether. As they waited for the boat to arrive, however, they amused themselves in a gift shop where Grandma purchased bagged ponchos (some gold and some red) for their journey out of the harbor and packages of astronaut ice cream. She also bought a little boxed art set for Collette of little paints, craypaws, paper, and markers – all in drawers colored with drawn tropical fish and blue water. Grandma bought for Carrie a fantastic watch shaped into a deep black Stealth Fighter which flashed red lights and made jet sounds when opened for the time. It was the best watch they had ever seen. And later, when they finally sold the old Bailey Mobile in ’97, Carrie nearly left it inside the seat. Mom found it and pulled it out minutes before they left the old car with the dealer, for good.

And such were her memories of the southeast – a great trip.

Back at home that gray Wednesday afternoon, Collette snapped and washed a pound of green beans to go with a dinner of fish and chips. After all, “fish and chips” sounded so much more interesting than the American way of referring to it.

Fact – Every drop of seawater contains approximately one billion gold atoms.