Remind Me on Sunday

He pushes open the screen door of Badger Store with one calloused hand, holding a small paper bag in the other, eyes ripened through time like two Alaskan blueberries squinting against the August sun.

Work boots topped with bits of dried concrete from the foundation pour on Saturday, crunch across the graveled parking lot heading toward the 1963 Chevy truck. On the other side of a dirty windshield splattered with mosquitos and the occasional fly, I wait, knowing he can just make out the top of my small blonde head filled with thirst over the possibilities that bag held.

Strawberry pop, cold and dripping with icy condensation is my favorite. Also, a bag of salty Fritos with the Mexican bandito dancing across the orange and white packaging.

It is Sunday.

1974.

I am 13.

And if my corner of the world is quiet enough, in 2025, I still see him walking; still hear the door of that old truck opening. A portal to the heart and strength of loyalty, wrapped in the flesh and blood of a simple, good man.

The familiar smell of coffee and sawdust and leather work seats, worn in spots, patched with silver duct tape in others, meets me in unexpected places throughout the years of traveling my own dirt roads without him.

That green flannel work shirt and faded wranglers with the prized silver tape measure hanging off his frayed brown belt like an identity badge, slides in beside my memories, smooth as yesterday, placing the brown paper bag between us; an extra passenger.

Two calloused hands take the wheel while my life pauses to breathe in this moment, once again, at sixty-three.

He has come back to take me back.

To the heat of an afternoon with no air conditioning and a crinkled paper sack pressing against my bare arm; its cool touch bringing such sweet relief I can almost forget it is Sunday.

Almost forget my friends are swimming at the pond, this sweaty summer day, while I am chosen like Cinderella to help him with chores on our family's land.

Almost.

Oddly, I am so much older now than he was then. Those flashes of time where I wanted to be with him and not with him, all at once, are frozen within my years.

Sometimes I think the truest tie we ever had were those workdays when I was the "chosen one" who did not want to be. Or the anticipation of a paper sack filled with 2 cans of strawberry pop, and how on Sundays, he never let me down.

Those were the times he said, "I see you" with no words at all.

That old engine simply turned over to begin the drive straight out of town, through skinny pine trees stunted in their tracks from harsh Alaskan winters; sweeping past dusty truck windows in the blur of summer.

Just the two of us.

Together, yet worlds apart.

Flickers of white Shasta daisies, poking through dry ditches and jagged rocks, reached for the sun a bit desperately as if they understood darkness was right around the bend. And all the while his left hand remained steady on the wheel, his right lifting a can from the dampening bag, offering it to me with a smile that lit those blueberry eyes to a new shade of northern sky.

Even then I figured they held secrets buried in meadows long ago, yet somehow still believed I might uncover all the truths and one day paint his tale between the covers of a book.

Strangely, as my youth grew up and forward, his story remained the same.

Life began with me.

Resting the smooth wetness of tin against my sweating cheek, I cannot recall if I said thank you, nor if I smiled back. I do remember bumping along country roads in a swirl of silt, pulling the tab on that pop. Bending it back and forth, back, and forth until the sharp part fell off and I placed the remaining circle on my finger, like a silver ring.

In those days we distanced ourselves from town until the radio's music became static, leaving me lost in the middle of those seventies lyrics I would come to live out so well.

"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun … “

All those hard and soft words, tattooed on my old soul before any true trips around the sun had begun. Before every spring in that seat beneath me jolted my insides from poetry to reality as the old truck avoided ruts, expertly maneuvered by the man in a hard hat who wore his covering with pride.

And I marveled at his ability to stay focused; pointing out squirrels or birds or the occasional moose meandering across the road, while vying for the attention of a teenage girl who dreamt of places some only read about, far, far away.

Taking that first long swallow of ice-cold pink soda, carbonation burning at my throat, I shyly watched him balance his own can on the open window with a hand the size of a saucer. Having felt both its discipline and love, I feared and craved it simultaneously.

Here in my corner, amid a world he would no longer recognize, I wish I could reach back to hold it now.

To say, “I see you, too”

To wander through dirt roads, windows down, sunshine dancing off an old trucks cracked dashboard, with the understanding of “time in a bottle” only age has provided.

All those silent moments between us suddenly have a voice, and I simply never realized how safe I felt just riding beside him.

On Sundays, he reminds me I still am.