Photo by Jeff Baker

Roads

by Jeff Baker

It was about six in the evening, the Friday before Labor Day Weekend when the car turned onto Millington Street in Wichita.

“You’re just in time, Dad,” I said, looking at the row of cars parked on either side of the street. “Any later and festivities would be underway.”

“Festival! Festival!” cracked my younger brother Nick, in his Star Trek shirt.

“Cut it out,” I said. I’d almost decked him when he’d tried to give me that neck pinch a while back.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll find a parking space and—ahhhh!”

Dad slid the car into the driveway beside my Great-Aunt and Uncle’s RV which was parked on the lawn between the driveway and the hedge.

“Okay! Everybody out!” Dad said. “We’ll grab the bags later.”

“Sure!” I said. “Hey, Uncle Randy!”

“Hey guys,” my Uncle said, looking tall, tanned with hair flecked with grey. “You beat the Labor Day traffic?”

“Yeah, looks like it’s all over your street.” Dad said.

My family had been coming here for Labor Day at this house since my Grandparents had lived there in the nineteen-fifties. Nick and I were born in the early seventies and Uncle Randy lived in the house now with whoever he was married to at the time.

Some of my earliest memories were of driving here and grilling out hot dogs. Even the month after Mom died three years ago, Dad had insisted on coming out here.

“Okay, Bill,” Uncle Randy said. “I, uh, have a surprise for you. We’re not barbecuing until tomorrow, so I thought you might want to go out by yourself…sort of.”

Dad stopped. “A blind date?”

The front door opened. The woman who stepped out wasn’t seriously hot, she looked a lot like someone who taught school, complete with glasses. But she was in jeans, a nice print shirt, curly brown hair that hit her shoulders, I mean I was only fourteen and I had realized I liked guys and hadn’t told anybody but I could tell she was pretty.

They introduced themselves (she was “Maybelle”) but I could tell something had happened; they weren’t taking their eyes off each other.

That was the moment I knew this was going to be real.

“Maybe you two would like to get a cup of coffee?” Uncle Randy said.

“Uh, yeah.” Dad said, looking up surprised. He had been staring at her eyes and smiling. “That would be nice. Uh, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Dad asked her.

They both laughed.

They decided to walk down the street (easier than driving through the traffic jam on Millington) to the old Twin Lakes Shopping Center which was a few blocks away. It was where I used to buy my comic books but now about all they had was storage and a chain coffee shop.

“We’ll see you boys later,” Dad said as they both walked away and waved.

“What’s he doin’? We just got here?” Nick said.

I grinned. “You’ll find out!” I said.

These Days, Dad and Maybelle live in the house on Millington, and we still have the family Labor Day get-together. When we all get up there, Nick on his second wife with five kids and me on my one and only husband and whichever cousins decide to show up, we still grouse about the cars, cook out on the grill and sit out and watch the stars in the late Summer sky.

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The title “Roads” was taken from an old Seabury Quinn story. It seemed to fit!

———-jeff Sept 13, 2023.