Remember Me by Brian MacLearn Read Free Book Online Page A

laughing at my comment. In between chuckles he managed to get in a, “Yes sir it is at that,” a couple of times.
    The moment passed when I thought I might have to explain my look. I was glad—I wouldn’t have known what to
    say anyway. I was happy to have a ride. I’d walked nearly a mile north before Ed was gracious enough to acknowledge
    my thumb and stopped to give me a lift. I liked him from the moment I opened the passenger side door and he shouted out to me to, “Climb on in son!” There had been several other cars pass me by and I didn’t hold it against them for not stopping.
    I’m sure I looked more like a risky bet than a safe one. My Hawkeye sweatshirt was dirty from my night at the old farm house and my jeans were full of oil stains and worn spots. My hair and face… God what an awful sight I must be… I would S 36 S
    RemembeR me
    have scared me.
    Ed was one of those rare individuals who trusted everyone and believed in decency first. God love him, and I’m sure he did. My ride with him was short, but in every way imaginable it had been meaningful. He made my predicament seem, somehow, more peaceful. I had no misgivings of what was
    in store for me; the world around me was on the brink of change. This “second-time” around world that I found myself in wasn’t any different than it had been the first time I lived it. Except—there were now two of me here. This time wasn’t what I had grown accustomed to. In the future I’d just left it was fast this, throw away that, hurry up and go there, got to have it right now! Technological advances really began to take off in the eighties and boomed into a world of mega advertising and self-entitlement. The ever-changing advancements in technology kept people on the edge, creating a never-ending demand for newer…better…cheaper. My world was one in
    which everyone wanted it now.
    Ed reminded me of the true cohesion people used to have
    before text messages and internet over-load. He was a pure conversation and my morale was in a better place by the pure happenstance of riding with him. In this time, parents and kids still talked at dinner time, mostly anyway. Cell phones weren’t permanently attached to one’s ear, or fingers. Conversation wasn’t texted in acronyms and codes only the kids understood.
    Both adults and children could formulate a complete sentence, and no-one said lol or OMG, let alone writing it on paper. This was still a time when you worked for what you wanted—believed in your own personal responsibility. It wouldn’t be long before we started taking everything for granted or feeling vic-timized by anything and everything around us.
    I asked Ed to let me out at the old Drexler gas station on the corner of Oak Street and 8th Street. It was only a six-block S 37 S
    Brian L. MacLearn
    walk to my Parent’s house from there. In my future, the gas station had turned into an auto repair shop, and then faded away into obscurity. Before it became an empty lot, it had once briefly housed a sub-sandwich shop. The city decided to widen the road to four lanes to accommodate the increased traffic and new construction. The building was eventually torn down to make room. It was nice to walk a part of my history once again.
    I entered the store and went straight to the cooler to grab a diet Pepsi, just like I used to do in my youth. When I was in my late teens, there’d been an older lady who worked the counter.
    She wore way too much make-up and supported a nineteen—
    fifty’s billowing pile of platinum blonde hair. She always drew my stares and my curiosity whenever I stopped in. She was one of those “interesting people” who stood out in the crowd—
    guaranteed to get a second-look. She walked her own path and was way ahead of her time.
    I turned towards the checkout counter and was rewarded
    with her smile. My reaction to her must have caused her to re-evaluate that smile, it disappeared in a heartbeat. It could have been my overall