The Road Behind

The years fold into one another like that old collapsible cup I used to take on picnics; memories in sepia and disappearing, resistant, resurrected only by a word, a sign, a sound. It is a vaporous thing to cherish; the wonder of it, not in its nostalgia, rather in its why. Old images grow ragged on their edges. The simple times were not the best, and fine sandpaper is the modifier of choice. I thought of lemonade at four o'clock, popcorn by the radio and Stoopspeakle nagling* on a Sunday afternoon. Then it is that I remember turning up the volume just to drown, I think, my parents' argument. ~ *Col. Stoopnagle was a radio comedian back in the early 40's, whose shtick was speaking in spoonerisms