A Saturday Morning Memory

 by Debie Oeser Cox

This memory is from the early summer of 1964 when I was twelve, living at 1017 Meridian Street. I had awakened before the sun came up, which was unusual for a night owl like me. Our house was usually full of people, Mama was one of 12 children and Daddy one of ten so there always a cousin spending the night, or at times, one or more of Mama's siblings living with us. On that morning all was quiet, just Mama, Daddy and me at home. I went out to sit on the front porch steps as the sun came up in the sky. We had a high, wrap-around porch on our Queen Ann style house. It was suddenly full daylight, a cloudless blue sky. The weather was pleasant, not humid and probably about 70 degrees. The street sweeper was coming down the hill from Vaughn towards our house. The huge truck had rotating brushes that swept the street and a spray of water to wash the debris into the storm sewer. The Purity Milk truck pulled up in front of Mrs. White's house and the milkman hopped out and ran up to her porch to leave her order of milk and juice. There was a bird of some sort high up in a hackberry singing a sweet song. I looked up and down the street at all the houses with neat yards and freshly cut grass, which I could smell in the air. Someone was cooking bacon and it made me hungry. Across the street, Mrs. Newby came out to sweep her porch. Next door, my sweet friend, Ophelia Primm, who to a twelve-year-old was ancient, but was probably no more than 70, opened the door to let her little pomeranian out. No one seemed to notice me sitting there. I decided that I would always remember that morning. I would keep that memory of that view of my little world forever in my heart. It is such a quiet, simple moment that to anyone else it probably doesn't seem memorable but it's a piece of Meridian Street that I always have with me. I can call up the scene in my mind's eye and Meridian Street and I are transformed to 1964.