Old Regular

~"After snack time we would head out on an adventure. She wasn’t one for sitting around much – she would get antsy.? And we would go riding around town in her big car. I think it was a blue Oldsmobile Delta 88.? Always, first, the gas station. Which I referred to as Old Regular. It was a name I had given it as a really little kid. In a small town in the late 60s and early 70’s no one pumped their own gas.? Gas stations were staffed by gas station attendants. Unleaded was unheard of or uncommon. It was commonplace for me to hear “Check the oil and fill it up with Regular.”? Oil + Regular = Old Regular.

So, we would stop at Old Regular. Me in my flowered sundress or smiley face top with matching shorts, in pig tails and knock off Keds tennis shoes from Kmart….and I would be greeted as a celebrity, have the run of the place and leave with whatever free candy I wanted.? I was always uncomfortably shy in those situations. I hated the attention because I was always so afraid of failing whatever test it was that I was being put to. It was always that way in that town – they were just waiting for you to fuck up.

This scene would repeat itself throughout town at everything we owned or had an ownership interest in…….and when your dad is the Circuit County Judge and the highest-ranking Mason in the state you own everything. The Bakery – the same thing. “Come behind the counter and pick out what you want honey.” The Bank – the same thing. A newly minted two-dollar bill delivered with a smile. He knew what to give me because my grandfather kept a steady cache of them. Hell, maybe every Waterloo grandfather did.? I would have to ask Angela Davis. In any case, I never thought it odd that I would just show up at the Bank and they would just give me money for apparently no reason other than being who I was. The same thing happened at my Grandparents and everywhere else. What’s not to love about Waterloo?

Aunt Marie was my grandpa’s sister. She was the stereotypical small German town sister of a big fish in a little pond. Fat, diabetic, on oxygen – with a big box of Russell Stover Candies in the front room. She was always out of breath, but rarely moving. Every rural country boy whose Daddy has a Sister has an Aunt Marie, where the back door is always unlocked and you are allowed in the kitchen in your “huntin” clothes despite the fact that you are all muddy because you are her bros son and she has no life of her own, dotes on her brother and by de facto you -? and will feed you whatever she has.? We love these fat Aunts – except they set the bar high for girlfriends and wives who just don’t think you’re quite as charming as your big fat Auntie does……but again, I digress."

~grit, unpublished and unedited