Honey Buns in Paradise

Years ago, I was a freshman in college at Northeast Louisiana in Monroe. At the end of the hall was a cigarette machine, a soda machine and one that sold Honey Buns. One night while I was studying my roommate came running into the room in an animated state of excitement.

"The honey bun machine is broke. Help me, quick!"

The machine was broken. Every time you pulled the retrieve handle, several Honey Buns would pour out of it. My roomy and I cleaned out the machine.

Several weeks or so later, after consuming many Honey buns, I never wanted to see a Honey Bun again as long as I lived. It made me think of the first time I got inebriated. The same year, I think. My roommate - yes, the same culprit - and I were at a piano bar in downtown Monroe, Louisiana.

Chuck was very cosmopolitan and had been drinking alcohol for years. At least that's what he said. My parents were teetotalers and I had never ever sipped a beer.

"Try a sloe gin fizz, honey," the pretty, but old -at least to me at the time - singer suggested.

I took her advice and had several. I think we were finally thrown out of the place, or at least asked to leave. I woke up before morning, very sick. You don’t want to know the details. Anyway, a month or so ago, I ordered a sloe gin fizz at a bar I frequent. It was the first I'd had in more than thirty years. I didn't finish it.

Before my Mother died, we took a trip back to Vivian. Along the way we stopped to buy groceries in Atlanta, Texas. While there, my mother bought, of all things, a box of Honey Buns. On the last leg home we stopped at a liquor store and I bought a twenty-four ounce Evil Eye High Density 10 % alcohol lager. I'm not making this up. I drank the strong beer after my parents turned in for the night.

I'm not particularly proud of the fact but the brew weakened me to the extent that I opened a Honey Bun and ate it.Well, unlike the sloe gin fizz, my first Honey Bun in more than thirty years wasn't so bad. Truth is, I even opened a second and ate it too. I guess what they say is true - time heals all wounds. Well, except for sloe gin.

Gondwana

Family Spirits

The dictionary defines triskaidekaphobia as the fear of the number 13. Today is Friday the thirteenth, supposedly an unlucky day. My day started in frustration with me thinking things are going badly for me. It made me think, which spirit have I angered. My first thought was my Mother.

My Mom died of lymphoma about two years ago. She was eighty-five when she died and mentally as sharp as a twenty-year-old. She fought her cancer until the end because she didn’t want to leave my Dad, who has advanced Alzheimer’s, alone. I assured her, just before she died, that Brother Jack and I would look after him.

I have wondered lately if she is keeping an eye on things and somehow unhappy with the way Jack and I are managing things. I have thought this for sometime now because my “Magic Moonflowers” haven’t bloomed since she died.

I don’t know if any of this is true, but last night I called on the spirits of my Grandpa and Grandma Pitt, my Mom’s parents, to intercede if this is truly the situation. Jack and I are far from perfect and neither of us can be with Dad as many hours each week as he would like us to. I also know that no one could ever take care of him as good as my Mom Mavis.

Now I know lots of you out there don’t believe in spirits, but today my luck took a turn for the best. Two very positive things that I had almost given up on happened and I have had a mile-wide grin on my face since noon.

I know the world is an imperfect place. I have thought many times that no one can do anything as well as I. I also know that when things don’t go right you often tend to blame the ones you love the most. I’ve known this since I was a child.

My Mom and my Grandma Pitt were very close and never a day passed that they weren’t together. Brother Jack and I were no angels and got into trouble on a daily basis but we always knew that Grandma Pitt would intercede on our behalf, no matter what mischief we had caused. Grandpa Pitt would back her up and tell my Mom to cut us some slack.

“They are just being boys,” he would say.

Today is Friday the 13 and a chill wind is blowing outside the house. I am happy as I keyboard this story because I realize that “family” is the single strongest entity that exists and that I can still grab my Grandma’s spirit leg and ask her to protect me, and know that she will.