What, you say? Malted Milk Balls. I don’t know why this is on my mind, but it is…or they are…I don’t know. Recently there was a big storm; Hurricane named Irma. We live in Florida, so the first thing I thought was

“Jesus, look at the size of it!”

The second thing that I thought, having sat in my (then new) house through Hurricane Floyd was,

“Never again.”

Not being able to sleep at about 1:30 in the morning about four days before the storm would impact us in North Florida, I drew a radius that took us far enough away from the storm so that I knew we wouldn’t be ping-ponging it around the southeast and found a place in far North Georgia that had room enough to comfortably house all of us. No small feat with the storm of unheard-of proportions bearing down on us and about four days until landfall.This isn’t a story about adversity- we did the smart thing, boarded up the houses, placed things that would be ruined by water up as high as we could get them, packed our valuables and papers and, well…hauled ass.

We were fine in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. We stayed in a lodge that was, possibly in it’s hey-day, a swinger’s paradise, complete with a giant Jacuzzi in every suite. We were safe. Tired, but safe.

On the second day we went into town out of boredom to visit, of all things, the local Wal-Mart. We picked up a number of things, mostly to feel like we were preparing for something, but I found something that caught me off-guard. Malted Milk Balls. I couldn’t resist.

My parents were frugal. They spent only what they needed to spend and saved everything they could. When my dad brought home a treat this was a night of reckless abandon. I have four sisters and three brothers. Needless to say, it took all they had to feed and clothe us all, and we never lacked for anything, especially love and good humor, but we were not spoiled. I remember maybe once a month or so my father would bring home giant sacks from Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips or sometimes a sack full of Dilly Bars from Dairy Queen. If you remember Dilley bars, well, let me be the bearer of bad news. You are old, my friend.

Once in a while my father would run up to K-Mart- side note, Sam Walton didn’t invent the giant store that sold cheap, global goods, he just pilfered it by saying “buy American” and, once he killed that Blue Light Special, he set up giant container lines to buy all that shit from around the globe. So slick and cheap that you forgot why you thought he was cool in the first place-but I digress…my father would run up to K-Mart for the washer to stop the leaky faucet or the weird thing for that thing that you would normally need to wait to get from the Shadwick’s Hardware in the morning and often time he would come back with one of the most awesome treats that I remember-a carton of Malted Milk Balls.

Malted Milk Balls came in a wax-covered cardboard carton like a half-gallon of milk. He would come and find me or we would find ourselves by the television watching something silly like MacGyver, Greatest American Hero, or, sorry to say, Hee-Haw and he would pull out this carton of malty, chocolaty, goodness and say

“Look what I got”

I can still see the smile on his face. I can still see him leaning over to me with this thing between us, like we were sharing a secret-and maybe we were, I don’t know, Mom was a tyrant about good eating habits- and I could just tell that this was going to be a fine night. No worries. No broken down cars to fix so we could all get to work. No non-lighting furnace in the depths of winter. No broken pipes. No, and I mean no…worries. I can still hear the sound of the carton as we turned it over and passed it back and forth until it was empty. I can still hear the sound they made inside my own head as they crunched. I can still taste them. No, wait, I can still taste them because I am sitting here remembering this with a glass of bourbon and a dish full of Malted Milk Balls. Sorry, Dad. My parents didn’t drink.

This has been a long week. It is very late on a Friday night, or early on a Saturday. This time last week I was wondering if I would still have a house after Hurricane Irma. This time last week I was sick to my stomach, having already made arrangements to leave our houses and all that I call home in order to be safe and away from harm. I don’t know how to describe this feeling. I believe it is why a lot of people stay and try to “ride it out”. I just felt that I should be doing something; that I can’t leave my home and run. But what can I do? I sat through Hurricane Floyd with my windows boarded and I listen to the house groan and, with every noise that I shouldn’t be hearing, wondered if the roof was coming off, all while my daughter slept cluelessly in her room, safe in the knowledge that Dad would never have let her go to bed if there was anything to worry about. I vowed never to go through that again nor to put my loved ones in harms way for a feeling that I could not define- that I should be able to make this situation, somehow, okay.

Fast forward twenty years. Hurricane Irma has past. Florida has had an ordeal that we won’t soon forget. My house and my sweetheart’s house are fine, no damage, but many friends have lost a lot, if not everything. We are fortunate. The trip to North Georgia was not always pleasant, but I remember what it was like sitting in a building that may not be able to protect you and wondering if the next gust of wind is the one that sends you, neck deep, into the River Styx. I remember. This time we are all fine. Cranky, but fine with all of our limbs still attached to our torsos. Everyone is in bed. The Second Daughter is resting up for a swim invitational in the morning. The Queen is sound asleep in our bed. The stars are out for the first time in maybe two weeks and it is quiet.

I am sitting here with a glass of bourbon and a dish full of Malted Milk Balls. When I am done writing this I will go out and look at the stars some more and I will smile and remember those days in front of the television with my Dad and a carton of Malted Milk Balls. I don’t know what sort of storm he, or more likely we, had just come through, but I had no idea at the time. I know now that he did. I understand now that he or he and mom may have just been through an Irma of their own, but I was clueless. I was just excited that we had Malted Milk Balls. I remember that look of peace on his face. I am wearing it right now.