PEANUT BUTTER, JELLO and BANANAS

"Friends are family we have chosen ourselves..." 

-Dahi Tamara Koch

End of August always came fast. Gone were  days of running around with my friend Maria.  Peas in a  pod. That was us. It was our last full summer of being silly, being twelve  years old, being happy in our world

 Our parents were always working. Maria’s dad was a grocer. Her mother was a chef at one time. My mother was a seamstress for a big hotel in town. She used to bring her work home with her most days. I can still hear the sewing machine vrooming away into the  wee hours on weekend mornings. She’d watch a movie while she sewed. She really liked Jimmy Stewart and the “Duke”, John Wayne. 

On  workdays, I was supposed to clean up the bathroom, do math booklets or practise  piano or violin ( yuck).  Maria and I always had other ideas.

Many afternoons, Maria came by, tapping on the door. I would grab my house key and run to meet her. I  took care to be home by four at the latest. My mother took the bus home, and sometimes we surprised each other,  reaching the back door at the same time.

Those  were glorious days. Maria liked to envision she was a  superhero. I liked to pretend I was a  moody actress. We often started our  days down at the beach, below the cemetery, where we’d  pick up stones. One of our favourite games  was to pretend to go camping in amongst the headstones of the graveyard. We used the stones from the beach to build our own little fort.

Our “campsite”  was near the main road, by the hedge, underneath a big pine tree. It  was surrounded by dirt, and pine needles. We ringed it with the rocks we’d been hauling up  all summer long.  We even built a pretend fire, without the flames.  One day, Maria brought a broken hot plate which we set up to “cook” on. I brought peanut butter sandwiches. We  watched them “sizzle” on the broken burner. 

Maria usually had a few bananas on hand. We’d squish up the fruit to shove between the slices of bread. They were kinda gross. Bugs and dirt seemed to get caught in the peanut butter. I was in charge of the thermos of water. And the raincoat. We used that for a tablecloth, a mat, a cover when it rained. It was a well used raincoat by the end of August.  I was supposed to wear it to school.

One  day, I raided out the  pantry and brought  jello boxes in the raincoat pockets. 

Maria and I  liked to dip our fingers in the crystals, then  lick it from our grimy fingers. Then we’d wipe our fingers on the raincoat sleeves. It got very sticky. The ants liked that. We liked that. Maria liked  cherry flavour the best.

We sat in the dirt on the raincoat and told each other ghost stories. Sometimes we pretended ghosts and goblins were chasing us. We’d take turns shrieking for help.

One day an old couple, walking by,  heard us.  They asked if we were having fun. “Oh yes,” we chirped. “We’re camping!” They toddled on.  We returned to our ghost story and peanut butter and jello, and squishy bananas.

A week later,  day before Labour day, it rained. Maria and I  met to play in the cemetery. We spread out my dirty raincoat by the tree, downed the jelly powder, and sandwiches. Today we had mandarin oranges instead of bananas. It was getting chilly so we quit early.

That was the last of our camping game. We never played it again.  I rolled up the raincoat and trundled home. It had a funny smell. Maria waved as she turned down her street.

My mother was waiting when I got home. Turned out the old couple who saw us in the graveyard, also knew my mother from the church. They  phoned her at work.  She stood in front of me ,  with her arms folded. 

My mother sniffed the air. I sniffed. Sniff Sniff. That raincoat  reeked to high heaven. She had me unroll it over the bathroom sink. Pieces of doggy doo doo fell from the folds. She saw the peanut butter, the grass stains, the sticky jelly stuff, brown banana goo.  Doo here. Doo doo there. Everywhere a doo doo.

She got very quiet. Then she snorted. She laughed. Took me by surprise. Then she composed herself. Ready to be stern. She snorted again.

 I was handed a bar of soap and spent the better part of the evening washing , and rewashing that raincoat.  It never did reclaim any of its former glory. It ended up  in a trash bag.   I had no raincoat, for a while. 

On days that it rained, till we could get another raincoat, my mother made me wear  a black garbage bag with holes cut in it for my arms and my head. To school. Of course, to school, wouldn’t you know it? Much to the delight of my  friend, Maria. She thought it was hilarious.

So she wore one as well. Got her mother to cut one out. Peas in a pod, that was us.  We grew up over the next year. Maria  moved away the following summer and I never saw her again. I missed her in the years to come. I often think of her, wonder how she is, what wonderful thing she did with her life. 

But I’ve never missed camping, or peanut butter, jello, and bananas.

Photographs 2022  "Peanut Butter, Jello and Bananas"  for my dear friend, Maria , across the miles.