PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

My mother’s moving van was schedule to arrive Thursday, Sept 5, from New Hampshire.  In the truck was the entirely of her 51 years of military globetrotting with my late father.  We watched the weather and late Wednesday the moving company called and said they were going to deliver to Myrtle Beach first, because Fran was suppose to hit there.  Well, we know now what happened.  Myrtle Beach was spared the brunt and the moving van shows up at my door on Friday morning, September 6th.  

Now you have to picture this:  We live downtown in the City of Oaks.  My tiny city lot has/had 15-18 oak trees alone, not to mention the park across the street.  How that moving van found the only way into the neighborhood, I don’t know, under the sagging electric wires, the half buried transformers, and those beautiful oak trees (roots).  They were going to make 3 deliveries: one stop to my house, one to my mother’s new assisted living apartment, and the last to a storage unit.  The storage unit gate wouldn’t open (no electricity) naturally, so what didn’t fit in the apartment, came to my little 1300 square foot home.  

But, we were lucky.  We lost 2-3 trees, one an apple tree that trapped us from going out one door.  The only one affected by that was the dog because she wasn’t sure where she was supposed to do her business.  She’d look at me, then look to where the tree had uprooted, then back to me, then back to the tree…

Lots of memories...especially trying to find dinner that night and learning a friend had a gas stove that was working and a bottle of wine.  But first we had to traverse Raleigh to get there. We found ourselves on Ridge Rd. The power lines leaned over the road like sabers at a military wedding, held somehow from falling by an unseen branch. Traveling up Leadmine, I did what became “the Mommy.”  Each time we went under a power line draped across the road, I would duck inside the car.  Clutching the wheel, I would cower beneath the roof of my car as we slalomed around homemade electric poles and the children roared with laughter.  

Just some of the memories…like the image of my neighbor standing on top of the fallen trees in his front yard.  There were so many that he was even with the roof of his split level house.  He had his chain saw held high in the air as he attacked the wood like Prince Charming cutting his way into the castle to get to Sleeping Beauty...my pictures got misplaced at the store unfortuantely…no digital then.

Oh, and cold showers, one memory I’d like to forget

Debbie Johnson, downtown Raleigh