Glass Bottles

Awhile ago, I downloaded a game on my iPad that has puzzles where you look for objects. As you complete the puzzles, you earn coins that allow you to continually move up in the game, unlocking more levels of puzzles, etc. One of the objects that I have had to "find" several times is a glass bottle. It's this dark green bottle shaped like an old coke bottle -- one of those from back in the day.

And every time I see that bottle, I am reminded of my childhood when we would visit my grandparents' home out in the Oklahoma countryside. We would go there when we were kids every Saturday as my dad farmed on the side. We only lived about thirty minutes away so we would just spend the day. And though I didn't appreciate it then, when I look back now I realize how those visits brought such security to my life.

But anyway, we three girls would hang with Grandma and Grandpa while Dad did his thing. Oftentimes, we would walk a couple of blocks down the highway that ran in front of their house (which was truly in the middle of nowhere) to a gas station. It was a rather picturesque setting actually--as my grandparents' two story blue-shingled house with a chicken house and barns and then an old run-down gas station  not too far away were the only man-made creations that interrupted miles and miles of prairie.

Once we arrived at that gas station with its old gas pumps, rickety wooden floors, and an ice chest filled with glass bottled sodas, we would each choose our treasure: a candybar, soda pop, candied cigarettes--whatever we fancied at that moment. We would pay the man who owned the store--Larson in the early days and then Donny Shones later, all dressed in overalls--then head back home.

That gas station and even the two storied blue-shingled house are all long gone now--buried in a pit that is covered with dirt and grass and time. But every time I go "home" to visit my dad who now lives in a much grander house where the blue-shingled house once stood, I can't help but fondly remember those happy days of walking the highway, drinking our bottled cokes, and smoking our candied cigarettes.

Some days I can't help but smile as I hear kids talking about their dreams, looking at us teachers who are in the middle of life as though we are ancient. It wasn't too long ago that I was one of them. My, how quickly life breezes by. Sometimes I feel discouraged as there are so many things that I wish I had accomplished in my life...but I haven't. And I can easily become consumed with moments of self-doubt and frustration.

But when I see those glass bottles, I am reminded of good times and laughter, of hope and security.  There remains a lot of living yet to do--my life is far from over. And so, I want to throw those negative thoughts to the wind, embracing where I am today. When I'm eighty, I hope to look back with nostalgia in my eye, saying, "When I was in my forties? Those were the days...." When I see pictures of my kids emerging into adulthood, when I am reminded of our gray Toyota, or I see another Cockapoo that makes me think of Piper...they will be the "glass bottles" that transport me to a day filled with laughter...like those when the wind blew my hair on the Oklahoma prairie...days filled with no regret.