ACCOZZAGLIA

I recall the many lazy afternoons on the swinging bench. Tom and I would always go there if there was nothing else to do. There we would carry on endless conversations about intellect, life, love, hate, dreams, and ideas — endless ideas. The summer rain would be an excellent catalyst in our discussions to talk about new ideas. The imaginations of ours ran wild. Even if nothing was spoken, the showers would give the mind a state of placidity unrivalled in any other situation.

Then, there was that time that we were fishing along Horsepen Bayou late one April afternoon. The weather had been questionable all day; however, we pursued on see what we could catch. We caught nothing until a blanket of drizzle enveloped the air. From all of the biting fish we were convinced to stay. We moved near a bridge to stay dry. A bolt of lightning struck some yards away where we had been previously standing. Frantically — “Oh shit!” — we got to his car and viewed the storm in safety.

Ever so faintly, I recall a time where we had been in the woods behind the park. I was perhaps 10. Travis took Greg, Tom, and I upon an untravelled trail. The weather had been less than wonderful, but the air was ambient. My mother had threatened me not to go back into the woods that day.

Then again, she always said that. That was, in essence, my invitation into nature’s pathways. We entered a clearance under a canopy of trees. Here’s it began to drizzle. Then, Travis, behind a bush, screamed out, “Snake!” We took off out of the woods and to the park. However, the sky began to fall when we were halfway to out destination, the rocket. The downpour slowed time to a crawl — the final sprint to safety took 15 moments. The water seeped through my clothes and through my skin to the body. We were so entertained that we took off our socks to have a sock fight at the top of the rocket, in a rainstorm, during the summer, at the park. Sigh.