In April of 2009 I wrote the following about my childhood popsicle experiences. I bet you had your share of popsicles also - didn't you?
Popsicles
Last week our youngest daughter called me, “Dad, I’m sick. Delaney’s sick and Jake is sick. We all need to go to the doctor. Do you think you could come help me with the kids at the Dr.'s office?” Every parent knows the answer to that question, don’t they?
Now you can picture this. We are at the pediatrician's office, a 1 year old on my daughter’s lap, me with a bouncing 3 year old and nobody in the whole place is feeling good. Little ones around, folks coughing, hacking, etc. I can’t remember the last time I sat in a pediatrician's office, but I have sat in them before for sure. Once inside the ‘inner quarters” the doctor finally comes in. He says “See if you can hold his arms down, put your arm across his forehead, hold him while I look down his throat and in his ears.” The little guy is not happy about these maneuvers; and I’m doing my best with these wrestling holds.
The doctor told my daughter, “Get as much liquid in them as you can.” “I can’t get them to eat or even drink anything,” she replied. Then the doctor said a word I had long since forgotten, but just hearing it brought a smile. "Popsicles! Get them to eat as many as you can all day.”
That word brought back vivid memories of my aunt Daisy and my cousins, Tom and Mona. Popsicles, warm summer days and nights and good times. Aunt Daisy used to make homemade popsicles. She would put colored water in little silver trays, then place a stick in the middle, and put all that in the freezer, and then wait. I think I can still hear her calling from the back porch of their house, “Popsicles ready, you kids want some popsicles?”
When I was a lad in the 40’s
and summer time came around.
We went to Uncle Frank and Aunt Daisy’s
and played ‘till sun had gone down.
Tom and I, we were cowboys, Mona was a cowboy’s sidekick. Aunt Daisy would call from the back porch
“Popsicles are ready, come quick!"
Thanks for the popsicles, Aunt Daisy,
they taste even sweeter today.
How important it is to remember,
never take the popsicles away.
Why now that I approach 60,
why do these kinds of memories ring clear?
Does God make us think of the good things,
when we have less time to be here?
I wonder what things we have done
that from our children’s memories won’t fade?
I hope it is something as sweet
as the popsicles Aunt Daisy has made.
-Written by Tom Montgomery on September 19, 1999
I too wonder what things we have done that from our children’s memories won’t fade.
April 7, 2009
Keep on,
Larry Adamson