Well, that’s enough about ants, or whatever it is I was writing about. And anyway, we can be glad they’re not cockroaches. Yet I remember my father’s uncles and aunts using the term cockroach endearingly, with a smile that also signified ample affection for the nephew they’d known from birth and watched grow up on their sister and brother-in-law’s Depression-era farm — the sister and brother-in-law being my father’s parents: my grandfather, who cut my hair for many years when I was a boy, as has been attested to more than once in these pages, and my grandmother, who burst out of the outhouse and chased my father around the yard after he’d showered it with clods while she was busy contemplating other things. Cockroaches — almost forty years ago, a few skittered out of a small cardboard box containing a gift of demitasse cups, apparently in storage for quite some time before they were purchased for us by our friend. That presented us with a problem, but only for a short time, or for what seems like a short time now. I hardly remember, which means I do remember, but I don’t, and I don’t remember, but I do. It’s probably been twenty years since I’ve thought of it — but who can be sure, and who, really, wants to be sure? But, lest this become a deep philosophical discussion, I’ll just say I’ve always liked the word cockroach and let it go at that. And I know why I like it. I like it because of the way it was used by my relatives. I wonder, though — was it all a dream? Of course it was — and is, because the dream has yet to end, and won’t, because it never began. I hold up my hand, look at my fingers, and smile.
~
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Categories: The Art of Being
Tags: Affection, Ants, Cockroaches, Demitasse, Memory, My Father, My Grandfather, My Grandmother, Outhouses, Relatives, The San Joaquin Valley
William Michaelian 