The Ole Playhouse

As I enter my bedroom on a cool Summer night, there is a light breeze that smells of lilacs from the bush outside my window. I reach for the cupcake shaped perfume bottle that my Mother purchased from the Avon Lady last week and apply some of the perfume to my wrists and slip on my pastel blue housecoat that matches my gown.

I hear my brother Tony enter my room and he says “Are you ready?”I nod, and pick up the book I am going to read to us tonight. I have read this book many times but we never grow tired of it.

I can hear my Dad and Mom in the living room as they talk about their day. We both go over and kiss them goodnight and say see ya in the morning. Tony is already in the kitchen getting a bag of Mike Sells green onion potato chips as I reach into the refrigerator and get out the cherry Kool-Aid and two plastic cups.

As we go out the back door, the katydid’s are loud and I can see that Tony has already turned on the little lamp we have on a table between our twin beds. We did not actually have electricity in the Playhouse, he would just run a long extension cord out the door into the garage window. My Mom painted the walls and ceiling light purple and made curtains for all three windows that we put up with a string. Dad put a chalkboard on the wall so we could play school in the daytime with our friends. There are some old prom dresses and heels we bought at a garage sale to play dress up. And of course my brother had to have a dirt pile behind it to play with his cars.

Our dog Major is walking beside us as he knows the routine to well. We settle in our beds and Major on a rug on the floor because he is not allowed on our beds. Tony has already opened the bag of chips and anticipates the reading of Flowers in the Attic.

We would do this every night in the Summer, it is a memory I think about often of how lucky I was to have my brother, my dog Major and the Ole Playhouse.