RC Cola and Memories

I used to tell people I was born fifty years later than I should have been.

I miss the days when we would play outside without worrying about locking our doors.

I miss the days when a grown man could hug a child without worrying that people were thinking he was some kind of pervert.

I miss the days when being a bad kid at school meant you talked in class, chewed gum, or (heaven-forbid) copied off another student.

Lately, I have realized that I am so very thankful to be living in the time we are living. So many wonderful things that make me thankful.

Air-conditioning. Medication. And diet sodas that don't taste diet.

I love the Diet Dr. Pepper ads. "Tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper."

Than what? A fistful of dirt? Perhaps.

The newest rage, started by Dr. Pepper is the "10" movement. As I write this, I'm finishing off an RC Cola 10.

The last time I had an RC was probably as a teenager. I say that because as I drink it, memories flood my mind.

I can vividly remember sitting at the breakfast table of Nana and Daddad's home in Leisure World in Mesa Arizona, looking out the window at the Superstition Mountains in the distance.

It amazes me that I can smell something, or taste something, and so clearly remember something from more than thirty years ago. Then I have a hard time remembering where I set my keys ten minutes before.

There are so many wonderful memories from back then. Listening to Nana tell such incredible stories from their travels...sleeping in the second bedroom on the rollaway beds, reading the Snoopy books. I still remember the ones where Snoopy was imitating Lucy by rolling his ears into the shape of her hair, and mimicking her angry movements.

I remember the beautiful sound the little clock in the front hallway made when it chimed on the quarter hours, and the song it played every hour. I remember the pocket door on the hall bath. I had never seen one before that, and thought it was about the coolest thing ever.

I remember walking to the community center, and putting twenty-five cents in the gumball machine to get Kix cereal out to feed the Koi.

I remember the train set in the garage, and how cool his setup was. I remember the family houses he had lovingly constructed out of balsa wood.

Thinking of Nana and Daddad, I also have vivid memories of the house they had in El Paso, although the images come back in smaller pieces.

But I remember sitting in the little bar area eating cereal for breakfast, or cold cuts for lunch. I remember it was off the kitchen, which was separated from the rest of the house by folding accordion doors.

I remember the orange carpet in the front bedroom and the dark red tile in the kitchen and back den. I remember the rock wall in the backyard, and how cool it all looked to me. I remember playing with the white plastic thunderbird cars on the wooden footrests in the living room.

I remember the hazelnut coffee in the morning, and how wonderful it smelled. As an adult, I smelled that, and the memories came rushing back. It was only then that I learned it was hazelnut.

How can it be that so many vivid memories survived for so many years?

I believe it was because of the people that were my Nana and Daddad.

I only got to see them once a year or so. But it was my favorite place in the whole world.

It took growing older to realize people make the home, not the furnishings. And it makes me realize what wonderful people Nana and Daddad truly were.

I know that if I live to be a hundred, I will never stop missing them, and the beautiful memories they gave me.