The air was clear, the sky clean, the fried chicken forever crisp through that long-ago spring when all was new except our underwear because we were young and bold and free, the freedom coming mainly because of the faulty underwear or lack of it altogether.
There was also immaturity involved.
It was a simpler time.
This spring of new memories brings back that one and old memories, and when we say “old” we are talking memories with wrinkles, although we recall those days, THAT spring, in living color.
Those were the Salad Days, when we were young and free with good teeth, strong abs, and stretchy bladders, and Mountain Dew was cheap and easy to come by.
“Hey buddy, got a Dew?” we would ask on nearly every Lincoln Parish street corner.
“Anything for you,” the kind soul would say, and hand you not one Dew, but two.
In the sugary sweet Soft Drink Kingdom, there is nothing better than a cold Dew — unless it’s two Dew. A double Dew.
Even better? A gaggle of Dew … Or is it a bevy? Perhaps a pod … Memory fails here.
But not all memory … I smell that spring in my nose, taste it on my lips, feel it on my skin. Possibly that’s sunburn. And still …
Life was grand. If we’d have been a bell, we’d have been ringing, dawn ’til whenever.
Alas, we go from the Memory Penthouse to the Memory Outhouse for a moment here and recall it’s been 15 years this week since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, more or less, off the Gulf Coast. (We’re thinking more, not less.) More than 130 million gallons of heavy crude into the ocean.
It was called, technically, a “spill,” which is something I do with milk in my kitchen. Five million barrels of crude oil in the Gulf is more like a gaggle or bevy or pod, whatever means “a whole lot.” Ask an oiled-up pelican or sidelined shrimper if it was a “spill.”
Funny how we use words to minimize.
In a perfect, cartoon world, next time they’ll hit a Mountain Dew well and won’t be able to get it capped. Ever. You’d have fish and shrimp and even oysters jumping into boats and nets, happy as the day they were hatched. And I’d be vacationing at the Redneck Riviera right now, playing with the caffeine-laced sharks and jellyfish.
It’s good to riff like this now and then, especially in the infancy of spring, the season that invented idle thoughts and daydreams. Without imagination and hope, we’re no more than a gaggle of bear. (I know that’s not right. I think for bears it’s “pack” or “sloth.” A sloth of bears. If you run into a sloth, you’ll want to drink about 14 Mountain Dews and hustle down the trail…)
The point is, dream a little. Let your imagination tickle your innards, which, believe it or not, is the old slogan for Mountain Dew. It was even written on the bottle, when Dew used to come in bottles. “It’ll tickle your innards,” a hurriedly drawn little cartoon hillbilly was telling you. On some bottles, there was an outhouse — Lord only knows why — and a jug of moonshine masquerading as Mountain Dew, which is what moonshine was often called back home on Route 2.
Bottled drinks used to have a much higher standard of creativity.
And I used to have a higher tolerance for Dew. Today, a soft drink in this bureau is rare as a cinnamon roll or a donut. Concession to age. But every now and then, as a salute to spring or if I don’t need to sleep for 42 hours or so, I’ll pop one (actually unscrew one since we have the new-fangled tops) and enjoy the taste of a youthful, carefree spring.
Now and then, it’s good to have your innards tickled, no matter your age. Now and then, it doesn’t hurt to just Dew it.
