Yahoo Mountain Dew!

YAHOO MOUNTAIN DEW! My Dad would shout this loudly anytime we were close to home on our way back from a trip.

See dad and mom used to own a produce store in Bluefield WV called Gateway Country Store and Produce. I often think it would've been cool for Gateway Computers to have to pay my parents for the name Gateway-it was after all a corporation. But that's off topic.

The store was like a min-Kroger that mated with a Cracker Barrel-before there was a Cracker Barrel. They went under in 1985 during the last "economic downturn" during the 80's.

Dad drove a truck to go get produce from all over the south east. As a little boy I often went with him. The truck was a white International Harvester with a 16ft bed. The truck kind not the kind you sleep in.

We'd go to Mt. Airy and Hillsville North Carolina to pick up loads of various kinds of produce. Then we'd haul it back over the mountains back to the market to sell it.

We'd travel to the docks at wholesale places in Winston Salem North Carolina where I would get to ride on these cool automatic palate jacks while they loaded our truck.

We'd go to the farmer's market just outside of the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football stadium. It was there that I learned to throw watermelons. We loaded them from the back of an open trailer attached to a semi and formed a line to throw them from the back of that truck to the back of our truck. It was hot, dirty, and itchy work. I loved it. I was thirteen and honestly thought that being part of the line of throwers was a right of passage into manhood. Dad was proud of me when that happened too. Good memory.

We'd travel to Georgia to get peaches right from the orchard, and Virginia to get Apples from the orchards, and strawberries from Florida.

I remember being small enough to stand up on the seat in the old International Harvester and my head touched the ceiling of the cab. I remember the smell of the vinyl seat and the faint hint of axle grease mixed in with my dad's Old Spice and coffee.

We'd be traveling for sometimes eight hours at a time back from these different states. When we'd get through the tunnel at East River Mountain we could feel the cooler air of "Nature's air conditioned City-Bluefield West Virginia" and dad would shout and I would shout with him YAHOO MOUNTAIN DEW WE'RE ALMOST HOME!"

My dad's almost home now. His spiritual home. He's dying in a nursing home. I can't help but smile as I imagine him feeling the grace of Jesus enfolding him with the familiarity of the mountains and the comforting presence of the One who created all of life. I imagine Jesus saying "Come on in Bud, I've prepared a place for you," and dad saying YAHOO! MOUNTAIN DEW!

Dwight