Cream Cheese & Jelly Sandwich and Casey

When I was in elementary school in Hurley, NY, I had a couple of friends who lived down the street. There were a few friends that lived a ways away and I would have to walk up and down steep hills to get there. It could be a long walk if you didn't know if they were home or not. This is back in the day where you couldn't instant message your friend when you're 8 years old. You have to go knock on the door and see if they are A. Home, B. Allowed to play, C. Want to play. My friend Wyatt lived a few houses down on the same side of the street and then Casey lived across from him.

We used to run around the neighborhood together until our parents yelled for us to come on in because it was dark. Casey was one of those kids that always seemed so well protected by his parents. He wasn't always allowed to come out to play and if he was, they used to yell for him and we would run all the way back to his house and it was just to make sure he was okay. Then we would go back again and do the whole thing all over. This was hard when we were far away, like down behind my house in the creek. We would sneak off that way to catch tadpoles. Usually nobody found out we were back there unless one of us fell in. If one of us fell in, we agreed to let the other one go home first so they wouldn't get in trouble when they saw your friend standing next to you sopping wet. Seems like it should be easy to stand up on the edge of a creek. It is. But it is not that easy to walk across the slippery rocks sticking up from the water. You had to do this to catch the tadpoles. We fell in more often than we caught a tadpole.

I remember his mother fixing him snacks. He used to eat what I thought were complicated, intricate snacks- like celery with peanut butter and raisins. Who has the time to put the peanut butter on celery, much less raisins? I just dipped my celery right into the peanut butter jar and ran off to play again. Not Casey. She would fix him snacks and offer to fix me one too. He would take a serious time out and sit down to eat. It was like a meal. She would serve him things like yogurt, granola, Chex mix (but some kind that is good for you) and fruit I think. This is all stuff that I did not eat for an after-school snack- I don't even really know if I ate after-school snacks like that. At least not on a regular basis.

Casey used to have to stop in the middle of the day for lunch in the summertime. I hated that because my Mom would just let me run in, grab what was for lunch and run back outside while eating. Casey's mother made him come inside and eat lunch with her and his sister. One time he told me that he had cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. I thought that was strange and had never heard of it. I told him it sounded really good. He said it was his favorite and next time his mom was making it, he would invite me for one. The next day, he begged his mom to make them again and she did. She invited me to eat with them that day and I got my own cream cheese and grape jelly sandwich with a side of potato chips. The combination of sweetness from the jelly, the richness of the cream cheese, and the texture of the bread was a perfect one. It is like eating lunch and dessert at the same time. Nothing compares to this sandwich. I still enjoy cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on occasion. Every time I do, I think of the days Casey and I fell into the creek trying to catch a tadpole.