Friday, September 10, 2010

A Snapshot of a Moment of Pure Bliss

There are those simple moments in life that you always remember fondly, moments that have left an indelible impression on you, even though the event itself wasn't Earth-shattering. Sometimes, the beautiful simplicity of a moment of pure joy just sticks with you regardless of the passage of time. This is one of those moments.

The moment in question occurred in the late summer of 1982. I was six months into my first marriage, and my wife and I lived in a small apartment in Brighton, near the Chestnut Hill area, just a stone's throw from Boston College.

I was working third shift as a computer operator at the time, so there was always that interesting transitional day when you shift from sleeping during the day to being awake, like the vast majority of so-called normal people.

On this particular occasion, I decided to spend my lunchtime at this small park located adjacent to the Chestnut Hill reservoir. There was (and perhaps still is?) a nifty ice cream and sub shop called the Fantastic Food Factory, located just a few blocks from our apartment. This place had the most amazing ice cream and huge sub sandwiches (although their pizza could be described charitably as "vile"). The place was the favored go-to site for our gaming dinner breaks.

Anyways, on this particular day, I left our apartment with a newly acquired paperback, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the novella by H.P. Lovecraft. This book was one in a series of Lovecraft books that I had picked up and was in the process of devouring, having only recently learned about ol' HPL courtesy of a D&D sourcebook called Deities and Demigods.

I went to FFF and picked up a large mushroom, steak and cheese sub (note: "large" as in "about three-foot long", and that's no exaggeration), a liter bottle of Mountain Dew (no, not Diet Dew..the real stuff), and a cup of Apple Pie ice cream. I took my loot and went to the little park off the reservoir, found a nice grassy spot underneath a large oak, and proceeded to pig out while reading Lovecraft.

And that was my afternoon. Pigging out on "not good for you" food, while reading "Charles Dexter Ward" for the very first time, punctuated with the occasional lazily drifting off for a several-minute catnap as the urge hit.

A moment of sheer beauty, never to be forgotten!

1 comment:

  1. Oh, my... that DOES sound like a delight to remember for a lifetime... :-)

    ReplyDelete