In Those Days

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In those days,
we rode in Grandpa's
brown and white Ford
out to the orchards, in late summer,
and were allowed to each pick
an apple ripe from the tree.

Never since have apples tasted
so good!

In those days, our small town
was surrounded by orchards
(everywhere condominiums
are now).

We'd go past Pandosy Mission,
out KLO, then turn in
the Casorso's driveway,
where Auggie would be gum-booting it
across to the pigs' pen,
and Grandpa Louis,
skinny, eyes twinkling darkly,
would be stirring something
steaming in a big pot,
calling his five
brown-eyed granddaughters
to come for soup.

They were shy and smiling,
those girls, and their mother
nearly died with every birth,
so at Christmas each bedroom
would have its own small tree.
Muriel wanted to leave good memories
behind, she said.

When she was in labour
with the two sons who came last,
our whole school prayed that she
and her babies would live.
And they did,
the first being laid on the altar,
dedicated to God.

Those drives in the country
on Sunday afternoons,
stopping to get out at Mission Creek,
where Mickey the dog rolled
in something foul,
and we suffered all the way
back into town,
are the stuff of memory now,
all shining golden with
late summer sun.

Driving the young cousins
who came next after my sister and me,
one evening, Grandpa remarked
that the chickens were all in bed.
"Don't they stay up to watch The Flintstones?"
young Cal asked, his round brown eyes
concerned at the injustice.

When my sister and I visit, now,
we drive to all the remembered places.
Some of our old homes
have vanished; some remain.
Miles of condominiums are planted
where the apple orchards of memory
once bloomed.