A heat wave in 1971 had me on the kitchen floor under the air vent and leaning against the cool oven door. My tummy tugged at me for food, and there was nothing else to do. The pantry was bare but often you could find stale white bread and mayonnaise. Sometimes there was Colby cheese and saltine crackers. The latter would require me to turn on the oven, and unappreciatively I longed for fresh beefsteak tomatoes to slip in between two slices of manor bread and a white silky pillow of Miracle Whip. But momma had no money, so there was no going to the farmers market like we usually did. I settled on dry Cheerios. One by one I threw them into the air and tried catching them in my mouth. Laughing, most of them landed on the floor around me, and if not crushed I rounded them up like lost sheep for my little sister Mary.