Dad's Attic Potpourri - Big Finish

By Alex Valavanis (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0
(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Catch up before we conclude. Click the text for Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Outside, we replaced our bouquets of moldy attic flowers with handfuls of puffy dandelions, violets, and wild strawberries. We stuffed red dogwood berries into the gaps of pinecones to be sold at our make-believe market alongside home-made mudpies. We threw the dollies and ourselves into the hammock and thrashed about wildly, buffeted by imaginary storms on invisible seas. We gave her mom mini-heart attacks, shrieking as the hoards of tent caterpillars hidden in the grass squished their guts between our bare toes. We were high on life, but we still craved danger...and height. Being genetically-doomed to shortness does that to a person.

Dad's Attic Potpourri - Part II

Missed the beginning? Read Part I here.

Leah's mom didn't seem to think her husband was such a brainiac either. This surprised us at first since she poured over boring wildflower books during camping trips instead of racing leaf boats with us. But she suffered from chronic vicarious-hypochondria, and she was losing the myriad of threats the attic posed to her children's health. She seemed to really enjoy warning us that we'd get frostbite, or cook our brains out, or suffer a brown recluse bite and subsequent expert medical-drowning in peroxide, or get sucked into the giant blades of the house fan. Now she was going to have to dream up all new child-health hazards to enhance her own immune system.

Dad's Attic Potpourri - Part I

Photo by NosniboR80, CC License From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Incenselonghua.jpg

In fourth grade, I had a “friend” whose dad grew “potpourri” in the attic. He never sold it; it was strictly for personal use. (I hear the lavender variety has calming, medicinal properties.) An excruciatingly frugal man – some might even say tightwad - he realized that growing, drying, and “smelling” his own in bulk was more cost effective than buying it pre-packaged. Plus his homegrown herbs were much higher quality than those sold in the dark corners of our small-town Wal-Mart parking lot. Not laced with anything unnatural, a good sniff guaranteed every time.