Fruit Loops

The Reports are back!
Remembering America: Reports on Returning home after nine months in Britain. 

Laurel, Maryland: The man wearing a cell phone and Tabasco sauce holster at breakfast. How all of the warmers, cabinets, and tools were toylike, down to the automatic pancake maker which rolled out two little pancakes like the playdough ones we had as kids. The friendliness of everyone from the rental car gal to the man from Ghana wearing red shoes in the elevator. Remembering words like "elevator" and "cell phone" instead of "lift" and "mobile."

Seeing the Fruit Loops in the carousel of cereals and remembering how much Dad loved them at the end of his life. He knew how much I loved them, too, when I was a kid. Remembering when I visited him in the hospital during the last weeks, after returning home from England, and him opening his bedside table drawer to reveal two rows of single-serve Fruit Loop containers and saying, "Look Kid, I saved you some."

When I held the door of the refrigerator open for the man after getting my milk, he said, "You're good. I'll get mine in a minute." And thinking how an unassuming slangy expression like "you're good" has a deep generosity about it, especially when said with a southern accent by a plain-spoken person. You're good. Everything is alright between us strangers. Peace be with you and only Tabasco in our holsters.