We're Ten Forever

There’s something about our house that makes me feel like we’re living in the country, perhaps 50 years ago; something about our neighbors and neighborhood suggesting a touch of the way-back-when that doesn’t want to be forgotten. I don’t rightly know how to say it. It’s nothing all that amazing, just a little bit neat…


I've mentioned Pete before. He's the one who gives us electricity when our power fails.

Pete’s from Mexico, but he lives across the road from us. We’re from Africa, but we live across the road from him. He’s about, oh, I don’t know how old…his wild hair is partly grey and partly black and some of it is missing from the top of his head. He’s not very tall and his belly is round. His face is brown and happy and he wears a grey goatee. He shakes when he laughs and his laugh is a grandfatherly growl. He thinks I’m the funniest thing sometimes, when I’m trying to be serious. Something must be wrong in the way I put things.
He makes hog-roasts (the best hog-roast this side of the country, probably) and he shares it with us. He also gives us venison when he gets hold of some and last winter, showed us how to skin and butcher an entire deer. He gave me a tenderloin roast all for myself and laughed when I refused a bag to carry it home in.
Then in the spring he took us Merell mushroom picking in the rain and showed us the best spots before anyone else got to them.
Last month he helped us collect mulberries from along the soccer field. Dad, Pete and I held the sheet while Calvin climbed the tree to shake the berries down. After that, Pete said, "Ok, who's coming to my house for some hog?" We all came over and he filled up a dish for us and we got to talking about ice cream and I said that I'd just made some.
"You did?" He said. "Cause, you know, around nine or ten at night..." he looked at the clock. "Oh, it is nine. Well, around nine or ten at night, I get to feeling like having some ice cream and then I'll drive down to Dairy Queen and eat a whole quart of it."
"I'll bring you over some," I said. "I'll go get it now!" And I ran out the door almost before making sure with Dad if that was alright.


Well, since it wasn't frozen yet, Tasha, Calvin and I brought it over the next night We followed him up the stairs to the kitchen where he set it on the table and got a bowl from a cupboard above the toaster and a spoon from a drawer. He scooped a bowl full, slapped the lid on the container and slid it back to me. I said, "No, the ice cream's for you."
"All of it?" he asked. I said yes. "Well, in that case"-- he pulled the lid off and dug three more scoops into this bowl. We laughed as we watched him put a spoonful in his mouth and we glanced at each other, anxious that he like it. After all, it was made with raw cream, organic sucanut and eggs, that's it and it might taste different than what he's used to.
"Vanilla?" he said and we nodded.
"It tastes like cream." He picked his bowl off the counter and walked out the room. We heard him say, "Honey, try this."
"What is it?"
"It's ice cream. The Carlsens made it."
"Is it chocolate?...it's really good!" she yelled to us.
Pete came back into the room. "I have something for you." He set the bowl down and began to walk out, but turned back with a twinkly grin. "Don't touch my ice cream." He looked at me the hardest.
While he was gone, I went into the family room to talk with Pete's wife, but when I walked back into the kitchen the ice cream had disappeared and the spoon lay naked in the bowl, my siblings leaning back on the counters, grinning. "What did you do!" I said. Tasha pointed behind a crock-pot.
Pete came back holding a plastic bag and we wiped the smiles off our faces long enough for him to notice the empty bowl. He yelled and we broke into laughter like a bunch of little kids.
"Who ate my ice cream?"
Tasha and Calvin pointed at me who was innocently standing with my hands clasped behind my back. Pete focused on the accused, a giant twinkle in his eye, but his mouth was scrunched into a semi-stern expression.
"I didn't do it! I didn't even know they did it."
What is it that always makes me the suspect, and in my purest moments too?
"Honey!" Pete stomped into the living room, just as Tasha whipped the ice cream from it's hiding place and set it back on the counter next to the empty bowl.
Pete walked back in and screamed. He tried to keep a straight face, but his eyes were laughing more than some people's mouths can. We were just dying.
 "What!" Pete said and strode over to pick up his bowl. "You put it in another bowl?"
Tasha said, "I saw where you took them from."
Then a low chuckle growled from him and he peeked at us like a badger. The chuckle grew bigger and he began to eat his ice cream again. "You..." he shook his head, a grin on his face.
After a while he said, "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I hope you leave soon."
We asked why.
"When you leave, I'm going to go'n feed my dogs, get ready for bed, then eat the rest of the ice cream."
"All of it?" I said. "You might get sick." I know I would.
"Oh, by tomorrow it'll all be gone." He laughed again and gave us the plastic bag. There were packets of frozen blue berries that he'd got in Wisconsin and we thanked him and took them home.


Honestly, sometimes I don't feel as though I'm seventeen. Sometimes I think that Tasha, Calvin and I are stuck at ages twelve, ten and seven and sometimes I think it will always be that way.
I think of our family as a family of kids, but really, one of us is almost out of the teens, one is almost old enough to vote and the other will be driving in less than two years.