When the Dandelions Sing

“Dear self,”

No. That just makes no sense at all. Writing a letter to my

much older self should not start off as “Dear self,” although,

well, I am writing to myself, technically. Kind of seems strange

to refer to me by my name, though, so maybe “Dear self”

works? Maybe I can just write it and use my given name.

“Dear Ronnie.”

Should I use my full name or is that too much? I do not want

my older self to think I was a dweeb for writing out my full

birth name, Ronnie Jefferson McFarland Jr. That would seem

as if I were trying to sound too grown up, and although I am

for my current age, that may be pushing my intelligence a

little. Not even I would believe it when I read it, to be honest.

Was I important enough to get away with that?

I could use my Grammy’s nickname for me. Jasper. It means

nothing, really. At least, I don’t think it does anyway, but when

I was a baby, she told my momma I did not look much like a

Ronnie to her. She was actually dumbfounded that Momma

had named me Ronnie, and not Ronald, or Donald, or something

that Ronnie would derive from. No, she just called me

Ronnie, which brings about another curious issue. How was

I Ronnie Jefferson McFarland Jr if my daddy’s name, as far

as I knew anyway, was not even Ronnie Sr.? So, Grammy told

my momma she was not going to be calling her grandson a

name that made no sense to her at all. Nope, I looked like a

Jasper to her, so she would call me Jasper, and that was that.

I liked Jasper. It was kind of a funny name, but still, it

did have a certain ring to it. When Grammy would call us

in to eat, she would just scream for my brother and sisters

by their own names, and then last, but not least, she would

scream, “Jasper! Get in here. Supper’s almost ready!” None

of my siblings had a special name like that. They had dumb

names like David and Janet and Thelma Louise. Nope, not

me. I was not ever going to be Ronnie to her. I was Jasper,

and that was perfectly fine by me. It set me apart because I

was clearly Grammy’s favorite. She would not tell me that,

but we all knew.

Davey teased me about it all the time, telling me Jasper

meant that Grammy thought I was stupid, or that because I

did not have a “real” first name like they did, that she made

that one up because she figured any foolish name would do.

He said she just found it while she was in town one day and

some guys were teasing each other, calling themselves Jaspers.

I knew better, though. Grammy, even when hollering at us

all for whatever dumb thing we had done, would wink at

me afterward, when the others were too busy getting upset

or washing up. She never admitted to it, though. I asked her

once about that and she told me I was acting a fool, that she

had not winked, not ever. Not even once. I felt like maybe I

had imagined the winking incidents, but the next time we got

in trouble for coming in late, all muddy and tracking dirt in

the house and onto her gleaming, freshly mopped hardwood

flooring, she winked again. She did not smile when she did,

though. She just winked, showing the long lines around her

eye, and looked away. I knew she did that because I was her

Jasper. I was certainly different from the others. The youngest

of all the grandkids, and I had the strangest first name to her.

So, she took a different liking to me for sure. I just knew it.

Back to my pending letter, though. This is harder than I

anticipated. I am trying to write a letter to my much older,

hopefully, more mature self, because I want to remember the

events unfolding here and now. This would be a moment in

my life I surely would need to document, so I would never

forget it, and I did not even know how to address myself in the

letter. If you cannot address yourself properly in a letter, you

simply cannot write the letter. Otherwise, it is just a letter to

basically anyone. What if I forgot I wrote this letter, and my

future older self, found it and forgot who wrote it and why?

Maybe I would just crumple it up in my hands, throw it away

in a wastebasket and not read it at all, because there was no

name to start it off. It was a major problem I had before me

for sure. A big dilemma for me, so I asked Davey for advice.

“Hey, Davey, how do you write a letter to yourself without

sounding all stupid and such?”

“You don’t,” Davey replied quickly. “Who writes a letter

to themselves, anyway? That makes literally no sense at all. I

mean, you are right here. Just tell yourself what you need to

tell, yourself,” as he chuckled at me with his response in jest.

“Oh, and what did I tell you! It is not Davey. It is David.

I am not like you at all, having a stupid first name that isn’t

even formal. That’s not even normal. I have a formal first

name. It is David. D A V I D. Say it, David.”

Momma always said Davey was mad when I was born. He

had been the baby of the family, and having two older sisters,

he felt he had it made in the shade. He could do whatever he

wanted because the sisters loved playing with him like he was

a real-life doll baby of theirs. I would laugh and tell Momma

he still looked and acted like a doll baby, and she would tell

me to knock it off with her smile and say, “A little he does,

doesn’t he?” She knew I was kidding, but it was all I had to

get Davey back with. He was exceedingly stronger than me, a

great deal smarter than me, and well, he did not like me much.

I wanted to play with him all the time, but he just did not see

the fun in doing that. He had his friends, and they always ran

as fast as they could when I would try to tag along behind.

I kept trying, figuring one day my legs would just magically

shift faster back and forth, just fast enough to catch them,

and they would be surprised and let me play just because of

that. It never happened though, despite my trying over and

over. I did not want to give up until they let me play. I was

determined. But the faster I got, the faster they seemed to get.

“Okay, Davey, I’m sorry. I just wanted to know, you know,

how you would write a letter to someone, like if you had to

write one to yourself for school, how would you start it off?

That’s all I was asking,” I said, not wanting to sound foolish.

Davey looked at me, with the slight grin he always looked

at me with, tied his tie around his neck as properly as he could,

and rolled his eyes upwards into the back of his head, and

shook it. He would not be of any help, I could clearly see, so

I needed to ask someone else. Maybe Janet would be able to

help me better. She was smart, 15 years old, and she liked me

even though we were 7 years different in age and had literally

nothing in common. She was a quiet, slender figured girl with

long, straight, dirty blonde hair that fell naturally to the floor,

and it was always neat, sometimes tightly braided in the back,

but never on the sides.

Janet was in her bedroom, which was at the top of the

stairs, where there once had been an old dusty attic. Grammy

and Grandad had turned that dark space into a bedroom

when we all moved in. The room had low curved ceilings on

the outsides because the roof was there just on top, but you

certainly could walk down the middle, and on each side were

daybeds—one for Janet and the other for Thelma Louise.

Janet always had to have the left side. She was the only one

of us who was left-handed, and she favored anything to that

side for some odd reason. She always felt the need to sit on

the left side of the car, she ate on the left side of the booth

in Roxy’s Diner when we went into town on Sundays for

Church, and she would always pick something up from the

ground below her, from her left side. Even if she had to turn

completely around, she would pick things up with her left

hand only, but people didn’t really say much to her about it,

because it was causing no harm, as Momma told me, and she

would eventually just outgrow it, she figured.

“Janet, can you help me with this, please? I want to write

a letter to myself, well, my older self to be exact, and I do not

know how to address myself, my older self. How would you

address you if you were writing a letter to your older self so

that you knew when you read it later, it was from you, to you?”

Janet looked at me, made a short-drawn smile, and shook

her head, as if to say, what on earth are you talking about,

Ronnie, but it was not to be mean at all. She really tried to

understand me as best she could with the age difference and

all, and I always tried to explain things to her the best I could,

but I was only 8 so it did not always come out right. Plus, I

talked super-fast when I was excited and felt the need to get

it out right away. Sometimes even quicker than my mouth

could get the words out, and I stumbled over them, so my

thoughts were all jumbled as they left my lips. I wanted to

just get everything out before I forgot it, so I tried my best to

do just that. She knew that and would always tell me to slow

down some. To take a deep breath. That I would remember the

important parts, and that would be enough. She was right, but

they were ALL important parts to me. I genuinely had a lot

to say, but now I just needed an answer to my letter problem

so I could continue with the meat of the letter. I had not even

written any words at all, because I had no idea how to start it.

“Ronnie, just start it by saying, dear Ronnie. That way,

you will know it is meant for you, and you will be using

your name, which I have never met another Ronnie. No one

will confuse you with, well, you. You do not need to write

out your full name. Where are you going to put the letter

anyway?” she asked.

I had not even thought about that. Where would I put this

letter so that no one would get to it before I did? Plus, it had

to be in a spot that no one would find it for a long time. I

wanted to make sure I only read this when I was old enough

to understand, and who knew when that would be. Plus, I

had to remember that I wrote the letter in the first place.

That was another perplexing problem altogether. How could

I open it and read it if I did not even remember where I had

hidden it years before? It had created more problems asking

a simple, basic question, and now I was getting frustrated all

over again. It was already a sad day, but I was trying to be

strong and just get things together in time and write this one

letter to myself before we left.

The letter would just need to wait. It was time to get going,

and the car was pulling up and outside now, waiting for us.

The ride was not a short one, so I had plenty of time to think

about the letter and how to address it perfectly. Plus, I now

needed to find a place to hide the letter, where no one would

find it, but myself when I was old enough to understand. The

trip would provide me with plenty of time, I thought. I could

figure this out, and then when we were done, come back

home and sit back down at the dining table, and write my

letter out. I had to go now, so that would just need to wait a

little bit longer.

Chapter 1

The Birth of Ronnie

* * *

Because of the rapidly accumulating snow laying

softly on the roads in town, Momma had to be

particularly careful driving herself to the emergency

room after her water broke while carrying me. She was

working at Roxy’s Diner part-time, while going to school

to learn how to do important office work, or something

like that. She said she needed to educate herself on how to

file important time-sensitive petitions (whatever those are),

how to talk with people on the phone who were always

demanding and screaming, and how to handle others in

suits who had come from better backgrounds than any of

us had. She knew that if she worked hard enough and was

dedicated to what it was she wanted to do, we could all

grow up to wear suits one day too and be just as important

as those folks were.

Momma was always working towards something better.

A way to get all her kids dressed well for their jobs, so

she could in time look back on her hard work and know

all those long hours of studying and working late, was

for good reason. She did not want the same old same old

over and over anymore. She wanted to break the recurring

chain, she said, and give us a better chance at life. Plus,

she figured at least one of her kids would succeed enough

to take care of her, when she grew old, frail, and tired and

needed to retire. She was always talking about retiring. I

had no idea what any of that meant, but I knew I wanted

to give her that one day. I would be the one making all

the money, telling people what to do and they would have

to listen to me, and Momma would be so proud of me, as

she sat, retired, drinking lemonade on her front porch. I do

not know what else she would be doing while retiring, but

I wanted to do that for her because it is what she wanted.

The time was not right for my arrival though. She was

only 34 weeks pregnant and I was coming before she had

a chance to prepare all the other children at home. When

she left that afternoon, just after her classes finished for

the day, she figured she had a few more weeks left in her to

work the diner, and finish out her semester at school, with

plenty of time to have me and then get back to class and

work. I was not having it, as Grammy would say. When I

wanted something, I was persistent. This was just the start

of my persistence, apparently. The world was a big, beautiful

place, full of curious wonders, attractive dancing colors

bouncing around, and riveting sounds. These were things I

just had to know about. So, I was being my impatient self,

and broke Momma’s water so I could come out and see all

the things I needed to.

Because the diner was packed, being that it was supper

time, and guys and girls were just finishing work at the

nearby steel plant, Stapleton Brothers Steel Works, Momma

told her boss she would just drive herself. This was her

fourth baby, and she was fine enough to know she had

plenty of time to get to the county hospital on the other side

of town, have me, and be home by the following evening,

resting in bed. Besides, they were short-staffed as it was.

The snow was falling hard, and the other waitresses did

not have four-wheel drive, so getting in was not a problem,

but getting home would be an entirely different story.

Momma had a faded Orange Scout with a white stripe a

third of the way up, so she could get around just about

anywhere she needed to. The driver side door would stick

more often than not, so she would need to either crawl

through the window or open the passenger side and crawl

across the seat, over the center console, and into the driver

seat. It was winter, so the driver side window was naturally

up already. This made it so she would need to open the

passenger side door, pull herself up to the seat, slide across

the hard, freezing, cracked black leather, over the center

console, and pull her body under the steering wheel so she

could start the Scout and drive.