Lots has changed over the years. When we lived there, there were no sidewalks, and that white addition at the far end was a screened in porch. What caught my eye today staggered me a bit, so much so that as soon as we arrived at Russ and Vi’s place I told Pam that I needed to go back and take a picture. I still don’t know why I was so compelled, but there I was, walking around in the yard I had not set foot on in close to 40 years.
When I was a boy there was a beautiful maple tree in the front yard, along with two dogwood trees on either side of the drive way, one pink, and the other white. Both are gone now. Several years ago, the power company committed a crime against humanity the day they, in their infinite wisdom, decided to string their power lines directly through the center of that magnificent tree, the one whose leaves came alive every fall in a burst of radiant yellow...
The results were about as horrific as it gets, but I took comfort every time I drove by that at least it was still alive and growing. I spent a lot of time underneath its branches to escape the heat of the sun when I was cutting grass or working in my Dad’s garden. But, yesterday, my heart sunk when I saw this out of the corner of my eye...
Maybe it was from the wind, or a lightening strike. But her days are numbered now. One day soon I will drive by and she will be gone.
I continued my walk around the yard. Nobody lives there anymore. It’s owned by the church right across the street. I think a Sunday school class or two meets in there. Everything looked different. The trees that were tiny saplings back when I was a kid were now huge and flourishing. One of the few things I recognized from the old days was our pitiful little grape vine which amazingly still persists...
But then I made the mistake of walking around to the back yard. That’s when I saw the back door that led into the old basement. It looked like a set of a horror movie, the door that the stupid blond girl never fails to enter even though everyone in the theatre is saying, No!! Not that door, you idiot!
It’s hard to describe what came over me when I saw this door with the overgrown bushes and the chipped paint. It was something very much like grief, a temporary yet overwhelming sadness. It was in this clammy basement where every summer when it got unbearably hot upstairs, Mom and Dad would allow me to set up a temporary bedroom. An old single bed, a desk and a single light bulb overhead. There was a small window only about three feet wide and six inches high which was open right above the ground right over my bed. At night I would prop up my old aqua colored transistor radio in that window and marvel at the play by play from big league baseball I could pull in from all over the place. On clear nights I could pick up Cleveland Indians games and even occasionally the St. Louis Cardinals. But it was so cool down there. Some nights I even had to get under the covers. I was 12 years old, maybe 13 and I felt safe there. I didn’t know a thing about the world, had no idea what was ahead of me. But in the morning I could hear Mom wake up and walk down the hall above my head from her bedroom to the kitchen. The old floorboards would groan and every now and again dust would drift down on my pillow. As I stood at the forlorn sight in front of me all of these memories came to life as if they had only happened yesterday.
Thomas Wolfe said, You can never go home again, and I think he’s right. Not because it isn’t there, but because what made it home no longer exists. Now, its just a broken down old house, but once a long time ago it was a broken down old house that was my safe refuge from a dangerous world. It was the place where I shared a bunk bed with my brother. It was a place where all six of us somehow had Christmas in that shoe box of a living room. It was the place where two adults and four kids shared one shower, where my mother cooked meal after meal for six people in that tiny Un-air conditioned kitchen. But now, the dogwoods are gone and the maple tree with the power lines going through its middle has just crumbled wide open and will soon be put out of its misery.
After taking these pictures, I walked back to my car, backed out of the driveway and drove away with a lump in my throat.
No comments:
Post a Comment