August Bare

by Stumblin' Jimmy Watermelon

emories are timeless things. I’d like to think that of this marvelously simple life I, yeah we, have gotten to live on our little islands, within our beautiful southern coastal countryside. The truth we all know, though, is that it isn’t that way, or at least it is that way, less and less. Memories may be one thing, but the reality of change is all around us. It’s like time, folks, you just can’t seem to stop it. What you don’t have to do is lose everything because of it.

Just the other morning, the early morning, right before the sun began to rise, I woke and decided to join it for the soon breaking day. As quietly as was possible for a man of my expanding stature, I swung out of bed and threw on a soft, worn, old pair of blue jean cut-offs and an equally faded t-shirt. I would note here, just for added dimension, that these were items my wife, Ghee, still peacefully asleep, had tried to throw away any number of times. I’m sure she’d want you to know that.

More or less awake but still a bit fuzzy, like my vision in the blue light of this hour, I drifted out of our bedroom and down the hall towards the front door. My immediate goal was to fetch the newspaper and then lazily enjoy a cup of coffee from my living room chair by a big picture window, watching the sunlight’s rays gradually break through the trees. Out on the front porch absentmindedly passed by the woven leather, black rubber tread soled sandals that my sweetheart had gotten me. (Flip-flops I guess were gone with the wind.) By instinct, I negotiated the steps.

Not more than a short stride onto the grass was I when my senses gave a start. Looking down I realized my bare, stump toed feet were now meeting with dewdrop wet, coastal Bermuda lawn. The wide blades were under my toes, around them, sticking up between them. What a wonderful shock it was. What memories rushed forward from the far back of my mind, far back to my childhood on the little island whose trends were twenty years behind the closest town which was thirty years behind the big city. Back then was a time of pure and simple days where we ran barefoot most all the spring and summer long, fall and winter too – as long as Momma didn’t catch us.