Post by Chris Maher

I write for only one reason. To remember. To uncover what I’ve buried and even what I’ve murdered. There are bits of bone, dirt, traces of blood in these words. Come to think of it, I write for a more fundamental reason: Because I have to. This moment I’m thinking of mid-April mornings when I was 10 and 11. Uncle Sonny would pick me up on Saturday around 7:00 a.m. in his 1965 metallic blue Mustang. Right before dawn, I’d covered my legs with sulfur powder to keep chiggers from biting. I’d fished threw the dining room closet to grab a broken wooden golf club that would serve as a “snake stick.” Such were the rituals preparing for the great adventure: Hunting for dewberries along the railroad tracks near Bellaire, Texas. Uncle Sonny knew this about me: “When you go quiet, Cat”—“Cat” is what he called me, a remnant of 1950’s hipster talk—“That’s when I know you’ve found a mess of berries, a patch so big that you can sit down and pick.” Once I went quieter than I'd ever been before. And, yes, I sat down. For this was no ordinary patch. It was the lost kingdom of berries. Draped in dew-drenched honeysuckle vines. And guarded, or so it seemed, by bumblebees, hovering about like disembodied eyes. I knew it was a sacred place. And I, a thief, had to work quickly. In due course, within the week, the plump dewberries would be transformed into cobblers by the scented hands of my Aunt, my Mom, and my Grandmother. Have you ever tasted hot dewberry cobbler topped with hand-cranked vanilla ice cream?