"Good night, Mom. G’night, Grandma.” I opened the door and climbed the attic stairs.
While many Americans drove the length and breadth of our country to historic sites and natural wonders, our vacations were limited to our means, and we spent a week with Mom’s mother and stepfather in the Missouri Ozarks. My grandparents lived between Warsaw and Lincoln, on a major, but two-lane, highway. Traffic lacked the constant rush hour roar of the city, and we could have up to 30 minutes of peace before another car or big truck passed.
Grandma and Grandpa owned a small parcel of rural land that held their two bedroom home and a separate building that housed a package store where they also sold food, clothing, live bait and other fishing items. The lack of space in their house made bedtimes a little cozy. Mom and Dad took one bedroom, while my two younger sisters shared a couch in the living room.
My two brothers and I slept on cots in the attic, and despite the two open windows at each end, when we hit the sack, the temperature was stifling. After an uncomfortable beginning, the early morning cold that always shocked me by its contrast from the heat of the night before settled us to sleep.
The trucks fascinated me with their sound through the open windows, a peculiar mix between a whine and a whistle. I was told the sound was due to the tires they had to use to handle the weight of their loads. Technology must have changed in the decades since, because, while the whine of these tires remains, the peculiar whistle that once accompanied them has vanished. Until sleep claimed me, I tossed and turned in the heat while the occasional truck passed, whistling in the Missouri night.