Flashbacks

It’s happened twice so far this week, once in the Cermak Plaza parking lot on Monday and again today, when I was driving along First Avenue. Flashbacks like this I could get used to. The first one occurred as Michele and I were going for dogfood. Wonder Basset has a persisting ear infection the vet thinks is the result of food allergies, and I’m hoping to find a bag of special bits for under $200. No, that’s not a typo. The breeze and the blue sky triggered a crowd of memories, along with being in that particular parking lot, the other side of Clare’s high school. All of a sudden, I could’ve been going to one of her games with the Mustangs. Then, just like that, it was gone, and I found myself back in the last day of February, not a bag of hypoallergenic dogfood in sight. This morning, I was on my way to Menards to buy new blinds for the back porch. Right around Brookfield Zoo, I happened to look up and saw three or four contrails lining the sky in white. And, just like that, it was ten years ago. Michele and I were making our way through a sandy-soiled state park in Florida, our way of killing time before Clare’s games that day. All the while we hiked, a skywriter puffed out a message high above. Somebody wanted us to know Jesus is our savior. But I knew that already and just wanted the games to start. Did I mention my daughter could hit the cover off the ball? All that spring she did. I saw it again in a flashback.