FEASTING ON MEMORIES

BY STRESSLA LYNN JOHNSON

The NEAR and FAR cards were printed by Cumbersome Multiples Press on a 1928 Chandler & Price letterpress using antique wooden type. PonyXpress writers wrote a response to the word on the cover. The cards were passed to the next writers and they used the prompt to write on the back.

It was only 7:15 in the morning, I was not even out of bed yet. I laid on top of my blankets staring at these spider-like cracks in the ceiling — cracks that looked like they were also waiting to be somewhere else. How was it possible for me to be this excited about a Sunday morning? Well, it was not just any Sunday morning for me. You see as a kid, Sundays were the day I knew that after sitting on those hard-unpadded church pews, listening to the Reverend preaching about heaven and hell, that I’d be off to Grandma’s house for our Sunday meal.

I remember the assortment of the food spread-out over the multicolored diamond imprinted tablecloth. An assortment that was-in-and-of-itself a work of art: seasoned collard greens, neck bones, pork-chops smothered in a mushroom gravy, dirty-rice peppered with sauteed chicken gizzards, fried chicken that could put Colonel Sanders out of business; ooh and that cornbread-looking up from the pan like ingots of 24-carat gold. The captivating mixture of aromas blanketing the rooms of the house in a festival of mouth-watering delicious delights.

All of this was only a prelude to what I had been thinking about since 7:15AM, as I laid staring at the cracks in my bedrooms’ ceiling. A bowl of Grandma’s vanilla wafer-banana cream pudding: creamy-smooth layers of joy that made me think: the bowl was too small; slices of bananas-wheels rolling around in creamy-vanilla-pudding almost daring me to swallow. Spoon-after-spoon of this earthy manna expertly made with Gramma’s hands of love.

Enjoying each spoon full, I recall how I would slow down as the pudding disappeared from the bowl. Even with all of the other food made with the same loving hands and heart, this banana pudding was the crowning jewel of Sunday’s meal at Grandmas’ house.

It would only be seven days until I’d be laying in my bed staring at the crack in the ceiling, preparing to tune out the threats of heaven and hell, and be once again, spoon in hand, enjoying Grandma’s banana pudding. | SLJ