I think back to my childhood often in hopes of uncovering unanswered questions through life’s natural progression. For decades it’s alluded me, but the facade came crashing down as soon as I developed a certain need for healing medications. I am a disabled veteran, after all.

Today, I made it make sense.

How did old people sit outside on summer afternoons and sip coffee when I was a kid?

They were everywhere! All my grandparents, plus just about every older couple down our street. As an elementary school-aged kid, they’d greet me with fond hellos as I buzzed their yards on my bicycle. When I would stop and speak to some, especially the regulars, I’d always get pieces of candy, loose change, or a corny joke (equally as valuable). In hindsight, I have come to realize that Greenville (the name of my hometown) earned its name in ways unlike the Wikipedia page promises. Here I am a middle-aged man and still believing my childhood block had a severe skunk infestation.

I sit this very moment conducting similar business. It’s hotter than a PS4 cooling fan and the coffee tastes amazing. Nothing is more important than the wind-down and, if a strange kid were to ride up to me right now…

Well. I’d do whatever it took to get him or her to go away. It sucks being baked and confronted by someone you don’t know. To boot, kids and strangers in 2025 is a taboo unlike the early eighties. Then again, maybe it should’nt have been so taboo back then, then it wouldn’t need to be as taboo now.

Pretend: It’s 1981, and I’m imagining good-old Mr. Erwin on Briscoe street. I just dropped my imitation Mongoose bicycle with the spider-mags in the yard. My stepdad is watching the news with a beer between his legs and mom is cooking meatloaf. I can’t play my Odyssey 2 because we only had one TV at the time. I blow through the house like a stray breeze to hit the backyard.

Once there, I check on my rabbit and shoulder my Daisy rifle for some exploring on the other side of the backyard fence.

Mr. Erwin and his wife are layed-out on the lawn furniture beneath one of their shade trees. They had an amazing back yard full of gardens, swings, and birdbaths. They were always so generous, but I was told I could never sit with them for too long. You see, the Erwin’s had a reoccurring skunk problem. I even smelled it myself from time to time.

Here I sit; the same age now as Mr. and Mrs. Erwin were then, I’m doing the exact same thing they were, and it’s still as illegal as ever. That stops dick.

You see, I began drinking coffee when I served in the military during my early twenties. I drink it black and bitter but, until recently, I could only enjoy it in cool, morning settings.

At 51, I get it. My sunsets are limited, same as they always were only with a smaller number.

What better way to spend these remaining days than under a summer sunset with the person I love, my choice of mind-altering substance in-tow; legal or otherwise?

Do it for Mr. And Mrs. Erwin, y’all. Do it for secret stoner Grandpa’s & Grandma’s everywhere.

Mine? Probably not, but how cool would that have been? Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon.

---