The Little Green Mint

By Mark Morgan

Special to The Waldron News

Seems like just about every restaurant around Waldron had one.

Sitting right there beside the cash register was a little glass bowl full of those green mints.

Now I'll be honest.

If there were only three or four left in the bottom of that bowl, I'd sometimes stop and think, "Lord only knows how many fingers have been digging around in there."

Then I'd grin...

Reach right in...

Grab two anyway.

Heck, I can even remember somebody carrying a handful around in their pocket. Before long, their fingers would have a little green tint on them. They'd hold one out and say, "Here...have one."

Most of us took it.

Popped it in our mouth.

Never gave it another thought.

Funny how life was back then.

The more I think about it, the more I realize those little green mints weren't the only things we shared.

On hot summer days there was one big orange water jug sitting under the shade tree where everybody was working.

One jug.

One little plastic cup.

By quitting time that little cup had probably made more rounds than the boss.

Nobody cared who drank first.

We were more interested in whether there was enough cold water left to make it through the afternoon.

Then there were those old glass Coca-Cola bottles.

You didn't throw them away.

You carried them back to the store, got your deposit, and before long that same bottle had been washed, refilled, and was cooling off in somebody else's hand.

Back then, bottles got a second chance.

Seems like people did too.

If a bunch of kids got thirsty playing ball, somebody grabbed the water hose.

One drink.

Next kid.

Next kid.

By the time everybody had a turn, there was more water on our shirts than in our mouths.

Nobody complained.

Nobody thought much about it.

Life just moved on.

The funny thing is, I'm not wishing we still did everything that way.

Some changes have made life cleaner, safer, and easier.

I'm thankful for that.

But every now and then I wonder if we lost something we never meant to lose.

Back then we didn't have much.

We reused bottles.

Coffee cans held nails.

Bread sacks held leftovers.

Neighbors borrowed tools without paperwork.

Somebody always had room for one more chair around the table.

We shared because sharing was simply part of living.

There's an old country saying, "A burden shared is a burden cut in half."

I believe that's true.

I also believe joy works the same way.

Maybe that's what those little green mints remind me of.

They were never really about candy.

They were about a time when people naturally shared whatever they had...a drink of water, a bottle of Coke, a handful of mints, a helping hand, or a few minutes on the front porch.

Looking back, I don't miss the mint bowl nearly as much as I miss the people who would've handed me the last one.