“Mint Tea & Tar Bubbles”

too hot for shoes...

an adaptation of a Native American teaching, by S.L. Gilbert

My Grandpa was part Cherokee. 

We’d sit out on his old clapboard porch many hot ‘n humid days, sipping mint tea and watching the tar bubble on the road. We were patiently waiting for some kinda traveler to part the air.

Lulu would eventually wag her way across the yard bringin’ the day’s collection of ticks and burs, but rare was the passing of more than two motorized contraptions.

Usually a grasshopper would tempt fate and shoot like a cannon from the grass, 

only to land on that blistering blacktop.

I didn’t know it then,

but Grandpa’s life was unwinding with black lung.

His breathing was getting’ as sticky as that road.

One day, as we swayed up a breeze on the metal rocker, I told him how I was going to put the hurt on that Huber kid come fall, for getting me kicked out of second grade and missing Ms. Lucy’s ice cream party; I’d thrown ink on his new Reds ball cap, cuz all the girls were thinking he was so swell after show ‘n tell.

“What‘d you expect to happen, tarnishing that boy for no reason?”

“That Huber kid always got new stuff. I never got nothing new.”

Grandpa took his thick, tobacco-stained hands and placed mine in ‘em.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said.

“It’s a terrible fight. It’s between two wolves.

One is sneaky an snarling.

Rabid and evil.

Every footstep he creepin' and lurking with anger, and envy.

He howls only sorrow and regret.

He is greedy, and self serving. He’s full of self-pity.

He’s so very boastful yet every word is a lie. 

He poisons everyone who'll listen, with resentment.

The other Wolf is golden white; strong and good, his face’n tail speak joy and love.

He gives without expecting a thing.

He is hope, and kindness. And humility.

Compassion, truth, and the faith in his heart guide his every step.

He don’t need to sport any new things.

You know something else; that same fight is going on inside of you- and every person you’ll ever meet.”

I thought about it for a few minutes; that Huber kid didn’t have any grandpa, or pappy, and he wore glasses.

I watched the grasshopper jump again from the middle of the road towards the huckleberries.

“Grandpa, which Wolf is gonna win?”

He put his arm around me and said,

“That’s up to you.

Which ever one you feed.”