Watermelon Today, Watermelon Tomorrow

This is a little piece about my childhood summers to pacify my recent autobiographical mood. :)

We had the Brady's house memorized

as well as we knew our own.

 

Chad Brock and Clay Walker

were my kings of CMT.

 

Homemade cereal meant

Cap'n Crunch, peanutbutter, marshmallows, and anything else we could find.

 

Lightning bugs and tree frogs

lived in old Ragu jars.

 

My favorite songs were

"Mambo Number 5" and "Summer Girls".

 

Swingsets and trampolines were

a must...

 

...and the pool was just

a backup plan.

 

"Breakfast feast" was a term that meant

waking up at noon and eating a roast beef sandwich

and a trail mix of whatever was in the cabinets.

 

Top 40 was "the greatest", and our station of choice:

Kicks 98, which eventually became Kiss FM.

 

Clueless was classic American cinema to be watched

over and over and to be quoted again and again.

 

We pretended to smoke birthday candles

over the cousin's toilet.

 

Watermelon was delicious, and its eating always

resulted in seed-spitting, eye-piercing battle.

 

I tried not to notice the small cuts in the creases

of my mouth from the frozen Kool-Aid "popcicles"

that came in a sharp plastic wrap.

 

(They still make those.)

 

Squeeze-Its had faces and we fought

over who'd get the girl one.

 

Tough decisions were made daily...

Red or blue Kool-Aid? What about grape?

 

Marathons of Rugrats could keep us entertained for

nearly all day, but when we could no longer stay focused

(after all, we'd seen every episode three times),

we spun around and around watching the carpet

become patterns of circles.

 

Bikinis and flip flops made us feel older,

and that's all we really wanted.

 

Now, all I want is to go back.

 

Ironic, huh?

Author's Note

The picture is a little before the times the poem speaks of, but it was already on my computer, so... :)

Reviews

[...]

I loved Rugrats! XD

So, I was reading this and I was like "Hm...some of these things sound familiar" and then I looked on your profile and--you're only 17?! Haha...I didn't realize that, I guess! Hehe. (I'm 16, by the way! Well....almost... on July 20th I will be!)

Anyway, I liked this! ^^ Little kids totally don't realize what they're in for when they "grow up"... Ha.

[Kitty]

Memories of our childhood are usually so much fun to relive!!!!

Great poem!

Josie

[ABBY]

now i really like this one. good job

[Kristin Brecoe]

Aww. I loved it. You are feeling rather reminescent, aren't you? =P
It's fun. I earlier days were kinda like that. So much less drama. To some extent anyway. Well, no...LOT less drama. Lot less pain. I mean I got in trouble and all that, fell down and scratched my knees, ran into square poles and gushed out bright red blood from my knee, and fell off a dogwood tree...But really, all that is loads less that the pain now. Those were actually some good old times...But I don't think I'd wanna go back. Even with all this stress of being older, I've grown and made some of the best friends I could ever ask for. That would probably be the only reason I wouldn't go back. My friends are just amazing and I don't know how else to describe them. They keep me in a piece...or maybe a couple, but it's better than me being alone...I get confused....And feel like a million pieces rather than a million bucks...

Well, enough of my rambling...
I call a cheers. To our childhood joys. [clinking of Jones bottles.]

-Kristin.
Now, if I can...I feel inspired...