Sunday Times
One of the most perfect moments in life is late on a Sunday evening in the middle of June around about 9:00 PM. I don’t know what it’s like in other times zones, but out here in the east, it’s pure magic.
Or maybe it’s the ice cream that does it.Nearly every weekend when I was a kid and my parents were still alive, we would come up to Granny’s house for Sunday dinner. And nearly every weekend my brother and I would get into it. It was almost always something that he started. I was not the aggressive type. But I wasn’t going to be a pussy and just take it either, so we both got in our share of blows and both had our share of trouble.
Even after spending much of the day forced into neutral corners, once we got in the car to go home, it would start up again. Sometimes it would get so bad that the seating arrangements had to change and my mother would get in the back seat with me and put my brother up front with my father as while he drove. My mother never drove on those trips, so I never got to sit in the front.
But, in the summertime, my mother tried a different tactic. If my brother and I could be good to each other, we would stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. Cool, brain-freezing soft-serve, all curvy and voluptuous in your fist, was enough to turn even my demonic brother into an angel…at least until he swallowed the last crunch of the cone, itself.
By that time, though, I was immune to his terror. I had found a certain contentment in soft-serve and Sundays around 9:00 PM.
I recently rediscovered that magic and sense of contentment.
A couple of days before, on Friday night, the attorney and I had our first big fight. I won’t go into the particulars, but it was a doozy. We’ve certainly had disagreements and even little arguments before. But this was one of those potentially relationship-challenging events.
Things even got to the point where he asked me to leave. Not an “it’s over” kind of thing. We were both exasperated, frustrated, and talking in circles. It was more like how my mother handled my brother and me. A “go to you own corner” kind of thing. And, by late Saturday things were not much better.
But, on Sunday, after a long drive through the Smokies, the attorney pulled his snazzy new convertible into Dairy Queen where we sat in virtual silence, looking over the lush green of the mountains at the nested pockets of fog and humidity that give them the name “Smokies.” About the only sounds were the distant rush of water that smoothed the river rocks, the zipping of June bugs, and occasional bobbing of our respective Adam’s apples with each swallow of frozen dairy goodness.
This time of year there is no gradual fading of the sun. It lingers low in the western sky until, almost like it’s on a light switch, it’s gone, and everything is suddenly bathed in the hazy darkness of summer, the surreal dance of lightning bugs, and the evening choir services of insects and frogs.
Sure, this sort of thing goes on most nights in the early summer, but only on a Sunday does it seem so magical. The struggles and problems from the previous days seemed to disappear. Like the sun absorbed it all and took it over the edge of the earth to give us a fresh start. Everything that came before was now behind us.
Ah, the magic of a summer Sunday evening around about 9:00 PM and the healing powers of soft-serve.
June 20th, 2007 at 1:07 am
I’ve seen the Smokies. Even taken a few pictures when I was there. I know I would like to experience what they are like of an evening, like you described. I do miss those quiet evenings in the country when all you here is frogs, birds, and insects. Specially during the summer when the nights are so warm and a cool breeze.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:36 am
Wouldn’t it be nice if all our quarrels could be solved with ice cream from DQ? I’ll take a double dip of chocolate, please.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:34 am
CLIFF HANGER - Here were the beginnings of truly getting in to the “meat” of Tony. “Ah so, ok, this is what makes Tony tick.”
I consider this telling an anti-climatic precursor to whatever differences there were with the “Attorney”. …or, is this getting too personal? I did read this story with interest, looking/hoping for more insight in to your inner world. In this story I found myself vicariously experiencing your past and perceiving the magic night. ‘Though, whatever troubles may have been between you and the “Attorney” are past occurrences, the question for me, as a devout reader of this blog, still hangs over the Smokies.
In my personal, subjective, opinion, I was served ice cream and had a taste for steak.
June 20th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Chocolate nut sundae, with extra nuts… or a banana split with extra whip cream… we used to get DQ all the time on Sundays after dinner… I wish there was one in my neighborhood… instead we have a horrible ice cream truck with horrible music… ughhh… I want to shoot it…
June 20th, 2007 at 7:51 am
Wouldn’t it be great if ice cream could solve all of the worlds’ problems like that on a Sunday evening and they would be forgotten…
DQ for everyone!
June 20th, 2007 at 9:13 am
i love these little glimpses into your life. i miss you. and i miss soft serve.
June 20th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I’ve heard the frogs sing and seen the sparkling display of lightning bugs, like newly-found galaxies bringing magic to an early evening. Perhaps part of their magic lies in the illumination they provided for both of you to find yourselves and each other? That would be Magic indeed, and like DQ soft-serve would go down smooth and easy.
Thanks for the word pictures. Your entries take us to another time and place.
June 20th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Blizzards..Yum! We have a DQ right up the street form our house a good 5 or 6 blocks away. Trying walking home on a nice June evening, when the sun hangs out until almost 10pm!
June 20th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
LT, Thank You… Your memory, sparked mine, I haven’t thought about those times in years… It’s needed now… Life was so simple then… Everything was so fresh, magical, and new…
and taken for granted… Thanks for the post… I need to slow down, and enjoy a sunset or two… 
June 21st, 2007 at 4:47 am
ahhhhhhh, memories.
June 22nd, 2007 at 8:29 am
same sex love - are we in the right direction?
leave your comments at:
http://am-not-ok.blogspot.com/2007/06/sexual-orientation.html
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Contentment . . .can’t be beat.
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:04 pm
The Dairy Queen was always a treat for me as a kid too, but I always liked making the homemade icecream with the rock salt, we lived in the country, and had to drive an hour to the nearest Dairy Queen, lol.
July 9th, 2007 at 8:50 am
by far, this was THE most thoughtful, reminicent, inspiring… make you just sit back and breathe and want to remember “those days”… when we were younger… blog entries I have ever read. Thank you for taking the time to sit back and and go into yourself to string these LIVED and cherished moments together for us. Bless you all the more for sharing them. It’s a Monday morning, and I’m in the office and trying to find all the magical reasons to make THIS week sparkle. This is my last week with this job. I start fresh & renewed next week with a new job. I’m excited, but also scared.
Sentence after sentence, my imagination came to life. Paragraph after paragraph, I wanted to fall back into those arms of lazy Sunday summers as a child. I could see you and your brother and your mother and your father. I could visualize the doozy of a fight with the attorney. I could see you sitting there in his car in front of the Diary Queen in utter silence. Reading it was — magical!