Country Time

The heat and humidity, hot flashes of lazy memories in Georgia, those sweltering sweaty summers, languid days laying on the trampoline begging Mother Nature for the slightest breeze, nothing.

That black synthetic material, space age fibers designed to propel trailer park children into the heavens; during those lazy afternoons, this husky boy was very much grounded. I’d lay there for hours and stare into the sky, our revolving cast of dogs and cats beneath me in the shade.

In the periphery of the country noises: birds in the trees, the rustle of trees as that begged for breeze briefly blows, a lonely pick-up truck rumbling down our narrow, two-lane lane; my brother’s own imaginary world at his monkey bars is alive with sounds of tumbles and trapezes, the gym set creaking and a bamboo pole striking metal, his hyperactive imagination displayed through the thick calluses on his hands from hanging upside down every Summer afternoon; my own hyper inactivity displayed through the thick midsection comfortably settled on the trampoline.

Those slow summer days, so in a hurry doing nothing, a frustrated teenager, strange crush on Jennifer Capriati, but unsure why I fantasized being friends with her and not more. Sometimes I’d stand behind our house and practice pelting tennis balls into the brick. The wall became a pattern of orange and red squares decorated with random circles of grey powder from where the tennis ball bounced into our dry, dusty yard, off my father’s broken racquet and against the wall, over and over and over, until the heat compelled me to relax on that squeaky trampoline, typically with a Country Time lemonade.