Written and illustrated by Antsy McClain
Summer love, then and now
Antique stores never change. Time has always been made to stand still within their walls, where objects once loved-on or displayed proudly on mantles now droop with age, wilting like cut flowers. A good antique store will smell like old varnish and moth balls, engine oil and metal shavings, dry rot with just a touch of mildew and faded perfume. I love all these smells. They take me everywhere at once, and I realize time travel is possible, if only in our minds. It happens suddenly by holding an object in our hands, opening a book or flipping through posters of old movies.
And that’s when it hit me, while sifting through movie posters displayed in a rack like a large Rolodex: “Casablanca,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
“Such quaint, old movies,” I snickered to myself. “How adorable is this?”
The summer before we got our driver’s licenses, we would ride for miles on our bicycles, meeting somewhere between her house and mine.
Artwork © 2025 by Antsy McClain. All Rights Reserved. Unhitched.com
And then I saw it: 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait,” a movie from my youth — my supposed not-so-distant youth.1
My first reaction was disbelief. It seemed surreal to find this poster in an antique store. It doesn’t seem that long ago, 1978. Not really. Not to me. My next reaction was denial after I did the math on my cellphone calculator.2
“Heaven Can Wait” was a movie I saw on my first date with a blue-eyed girl I was pretty sure I was in love with. Let’s call her Debbie.3
We had been friends for a while, Debbie and me. She lived 5 miles away in a nice, tidy suburb. I lived in a little town with more than its share of single-wide trailers.
The previous summers, Debbie and I were still riding bicycles, and we’d meet halfway at a little railroad stop with a feed store and general store tucked under one roof.
I’d bring a few dollars of lawn mowing money to splurge on her, and we’d return to our bikes and chomp Bazooka gum in the summer sunlight.
We’d groan at the corny cartoon humor of Bazooka Joe and his friends who lived on the inside of the wrappers. The cartoons were tiny, and we’d have to move our : heads close together to read them. Her hair smelled like flowers and fresh rain.
We’d talk about the future as far as we could see it from the porch of a feed store in a little farm town. The books I would read would teach me that there was a big world beyond these hills, and movies would teach me that love conquers all.
As the sun began to drop, we’d say our goodbyes, innocent and absent of the kiss I was too shy yet to attempt.4
Two and a half miles on a bike is a small price to pay to spend an afternoon with a girl you’re pretty sure you’re in love with. And the two and half miles back were nothing, riding as I was on a breezy tailwind of Summer Crush.
I pedaled past creeks and cornfields dappled by the shadows of sycamore trees. I crossed railroad tracks and passed abandoned barns, leaning and tired as the old farmers who built them and stuffed their hollows with hay bales.
Taking the thin, gray backroads home, I was passed every so often by the dark silhouette of a driver on his way home from work, his arm hanging casually out the window of a late-model sedan.
The Bazooka gum had lost its flavor, all rubbery now, but I wouldn’t dare spit it out. I kept chomping, savoring every bite of this day, making it last as long as possible.
Fast forward — gulp — 47 years. I am having coffee with a beautiful woman we’ll call Michelle.5
We’re watching the birds outside the sunroom window. And we notice a couple of cardinals. They are older and a bit more disheveled than the other birds. They keep to the ground, pecking at the seeds that have dropped from the feeders above.
The female cardinal is weak, sitting in one spot while the male searches for morsels of corn and sunflower seeds. He hops to her excitedly, putting each bite in her mouth. She takes the seeds gratefully and nibbles them down. This goes on for several minutes.
We are sitting close together, silent, tearing up at what we are witnessing. Michelle’s hair smells like flowers and rain, and I am forever amazed at how girls do that.
The old cardinals eat their fill and flutter offto the foliage of a nearby elm tree. They have each other. They have their history. They have this moment.
They are home.
I am decades away from that first date. But a simple movie poster can bring it all back. I can find my way there through a kaleidoscope of color, scent and sound while standing in a perfectly cluttered antique store.
And when I land back in the here and now, I am reminded just how lucky I am.
I have known great love, far deeper than a front porch kiss and a teenage crush alone could take me. But it all started there, sending me on the greatest adventures I could have ever imagined.
I’ve shared nests with remarkable people, helping raise beautiful babies into strong men and women. I am at peace. I have no enemies. I have no regrets.6
I have been that kid on the bicycle. Later I was that dark silhouette in the late-model sedan, migrating for decades between work and home. And I’ve been that disheveled cardinal, powerless in the face of pain yet cherishing the sacred act of taking care of someone he loves.
Listen to Antsy McClain’s song, “Full Moon Nights.”
Antsy McClain is a Nashville-adjacent singer-songwriter, author and graphic artist. Go to unhitched.com for his books, music and events. Use this QR code to download “Full Moon Nights” FREE to readers of The Tennessee Magazine. It’s about young love and summer nights.
And I still savor every beautiful moment like a rubbery wad of Bazooka. I chew every good thing down to its last specter of flavor.
The lush, summer foliage is gathering along the creek again like the love that has found its way back to me in these Tennessee hills.
I am in awe of life and all of its cycles. I cherish the miracle of memory. Whether in a musty antique store or along a summer creekside, I love how my senses pull beauty from the creases of time, where the world can seem timeless and love conquers all.
