The Visit

 The Visit

As a young boy my family would travel in our 1952 blue Ford sedan. I sitting in the front between my parents, my father perpetually the driver, my siblings in the back teasing each other.  We drove on that Sunday to visit my aunt Agatha who lived in a bleak brick building on a straight street with a hundred other such houses.  Her house smelled of peppermint and was decorated with dollies of her own making. It was not a place for children, as she had none of her own.  It was not a place I liked to visit and never returned there as an adult. The dinner was very Mennonite, simple with over cooked beef and mashed potatoes with corn accompanied with stilted conversation in  German which I could not follow.  After dinner French doors were opened to the mausoleum style living room which was only opened for Sunday guests and funerals. The room had a museum quality with everything in its place to be viewed, not touched.  The couch where I avoided sitting was completely covered in plastic, as was every lamp in the room.  I believe to preserve the eloquence of a fading dream.