Father Abraham

It may have been because of the Lemon Heads.

I was being bad and digging down through this basket of various flavors of "Lemon Heads," to the bottom where the actual lemon Lemon Heads where, when I got blasted by a wave of nostalgia.

My parents and I moved around a lot and sometimes their relationship wasn't very peaceful, but things weren't bad all the time.

There were times when they'd let me take the bottles over to the neighborhood penny-candy store, cash them in and buy candy and comic books.

Red cherries (balls of sugar!), three for a penny.  Boxes of pumpkin seeds or Lemon Heads for a nickel.

Wonder Woman comic books for 12 cents.  She'd fight the bad guys with her invisible jet and magic lasso and magic bracelets.  Every time she used her bracelets to block bad guy bullets, she'd say: "Hola!  Hola!"

Years later, I found out that she was speaking Spanish and saying:  "Hello!"

I remember one day in particular when my parents, brother and I played catch in the field across the alley behind our house.

And how sometimes my folks would sit on the porch playing checkers.  Daddy would distract Mama and steal her men off of the board.  She'd act really mad, but she kept playing.

And how Mama had these white, sheer curtains.  They'd slowly billow out from the window, then get sucked back against the screen by a passing breeze.  When I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland the Northern Lights sometimes reminded me of those summer days watching Mama's curtains.

And Father Abraham came to mind.  Don't know why.  He was an old, Jewish gentleman with a crinkly, long, gray beard.  Not white and wavy like Santa's, but gray and crinkly.

For some reason, sometimes he would invite black people over to his home on Sundays and cook for us.  The grown-ups sat at one table and us kids at another.  I associate Faygo Red Pop with those dinners.  Being born and raised in Detroit, it's unlikely that I'd never encountered Red Pop before, but when I remember Father Abraham's dinners, I remember Red Pop.  And salami, which I assume, now, was Kosher.  I still don't know why he did it; I just know that I liked having Faygo Red Pop and salami at Father Abraham's house.

We moved around a lot and I still don't have a sense of any one place being "home," but things weren't bad all the time.

Oh, and those lemon Lemon Heads?

Just the correct combination of sweet and sour to delightfully pucker my mouth!

Just like I remember.

Hola!