Sumner

image by glenn buttkus

Sumner

Twenty years ago when I lived nearby,

I used to drive through it, marveling

at the well kept yards, the casual

and open smiles, the well entrenched

block watch,

and the comfortable insinuation

that the sheriff was named Andy,

that Gomer worked at the last real gas station,

that Ozzie and Harriet’s former home

was like a shrine to some,

that David and Ricky attended

the mostly all-white high school,

that Donna Reed lived there for a time,

that Robert Young once owned a lot there,

that the newish strip malls were necessary

but slow in developing, and had to earn trust,

that most older couples walked hand in hand,

that even if someone had moved into the midst

of the languid living nostalgia and had resided

there for decades, they would remain

the new folks.

So I was resigned to nodding at my

third generation neighbors who

had grown up there, barbecuing in back yards

with their children and grandchildren,

none of which had ever left or wanted to leave

this garden spot in the valley, hemmed in

by foothills and two rivers, criss-crossed

with train tracks,

and on Sunday mornings when the ten churches 

let their great bells compete, even the long

freights and sleek passenger trains

would give a blast on their raucous air horns

to compliment the spirit of that reoccurring 

Norman Rockwell moment, and

I would sit on my covered redwood deck

sipping tea, playing pinochle with my wife,

saluting Mt. Rainier as the daylight slid down

its glaciers, waiting expectantly for

my pregnant middle daughter to show up

with granddaughter in tow after services

to continue with the garage sale she was

holding in our yard, creating cash for

care of the grandson soon to join us,

right there in the sweet suburbs

with the big city twinkling on the horizon

I realized that the American Dream

was as alive as you wanted it to be,

as you let it be. 

Glenn Buttkus

July 2012

Posted over at Magpie Tales 125

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