Head of the table

 

His seat was always at the head of the table, he said he could look at everyone from there so that he could be in on many conversations at the same time. As a young boy, I remember the little folks would have their own small table a few feet away from the grown-ups, just out of earshot to know what was being said. I was always amazed at how smart he was, and I enjoyed listening to his stories of days past and the people in it, like Grandma, who passed away a while ago. If we were lucky, he would call all the children into the living room, where before a glowing fire, we'd sit on the floor around him and listen to stories we never wanted to end. Decades have passed, and now I sit at the head of that table, looking at everyone so I can hear their conversations at the same time. I look over to the small table where children sit happily in their own wonderful world, waiting patiently for me to tell them a story. What would life be without a head of the table, a storyteller, and someone with enough love to fill your heart forever?

MO

Normandy

 A lone figure of a man walks ahead of me on a cold December night, each gust of wind causing him to stumble a bit, but he quickly regains his mission that lies ahead. He was back in Normandy in 1944, and he was just eighteen years of age. What must he be thinking? I say to myself, a hot bowl of soup or a piece of chocolate cake. Little did I know the depth of his thoughts on this cold December night some sixty years later. The sounds of the eighty-eights were deafening as the rounds hit treetops, exploding in mid-air, sending wooden splinters deep into a soldier's now lifeless body face down so he couldn't know who it was. Another explosion and the man sharing his foxhole was cut in half, still conscious enough to scream out in pain. I wonder if he has a wife, a family probably all grown up with kids of their own, and a house he bought decades ago with the GI Bill for veterans. I wonder what his profession was. Maybe a carpenter or plumber, perhaps a newspaper writer or a cook. Whatever he did, I'm sure he did it well, and don't ask me why I think that; I just do. The old man reaches his small house and stops a moment before going inside. There's nothing waiting for him. There is no one to share his day with to make new memories with. Only thoughts of a battlefield littered with fallen soldiers and faces he will see has seen for all of his adult life. Maybe he was a preacher spreading the word and giving comfort or a medic doing his best to keep soldiers alive. The old man disappeared behind the closed door, and I went on my way, picking up the pace a little as tonight was Thursday, which meant Roast beef for dinner. I turned to look for some reason and saw him coming down the steps and walking the path he walked so many times in his head. This time, he talked out loud to his brothers-in-arms and didn't care who thought he was crazy. They were walking beside him because he needed them to, and that's all that mattered to him anymore.

MO

 As a boy, I would spend countless hours beside my dad, learning everything I could to be just like him. He taught me how to fix cars and repair a washing machine. He watched over me as I painted my first vehicle and gave me a once-in-a-blue-moon nudge of approval on a job well done. When other kids played baseball, I was under the house putting in new pipes and picking up cigarettes that had fallen from his pocket. At the supper table, he was quiet, and when I began to speak of what I had learned that day, he told me to hush because a real man doesn't need to brag about his work. I'm grown up now and was blessed to have a son I could teach as my dad taught me, but I told him to make room for baseball and enlighten us at the supper table, telling us about his day. I see a part of myself in my son, the part wanting to learn and be nudged for doing a good job. The difference between how I was raised is there will always be talk and laughter at the same supper table I helped him make a long time ago. And I've promised myself there will always be enough nudging to go around.

MO

Frigid cold

 I returned to my childhood house one last time, just sitting out front with the heater on. It was exceptionally cold, with the winds blowing so hard at times I couldn't see a thing. I saw a school bus approaching and stopping next to me as two kids got off, looking like two specs of color in a white world. They headed for my childhood house, and my heart skipped a beat. Their mom greeted them with a smile as they disappeared behind closed doors, and instantly, I was six years old again. After changing out of our school clothes, a snack was waiting as my sister and I sat at the table and did our homework. The blizzard was raging, killing any chance of going outside to play. So, with homework finished and no television until this evening when Dad watched Walter Cronkite and the evening news, board games were brought out to keep us busy. Time passed, and The blizzard was almost over as I returned to reality when the front door of my old house opened. Two kids in snowsuits jumped for joy as they did what kids do on a cold winter day. I put my car in gear and drove slowly down the street of my youth, trying to keep those memories alive for a while longer, at least long enough for two specs to disappear in my rear view.

MO

Camper on the mountain

 I sat quietly in the back seat of our 1957 Chevy station wagon. My older and younger sisters claimed the rear floor area where they could put their dolls and play tea party or some other girly game. No boys allowed. They took turns shouting at me. I preferred to look out of the window in silence as the scenery changed before my eyes, eventually ending at the foot of a giant hill secured with a metal fence and no trespassing signs. Dad opened it and got back in the car, asking if we were ready to climb up to the top. Mom was nervous, I could tell, but she knew better than to disagree with her husband;  that's not what good wives do. The tires slid on the frozen ground, but Dad was determined, so he kept on the gas until the wagon finally grabbed hold and climbed the hill. I smiled as I saw the small trailer sitting alone at the top of the mountain, waiting to be brought back to life. Back then, it was easy to fit all of us inside the little camper, but as I grew up and spent many times at the trailer on the mountain, I discovered how small it really was.

Nonetheless, I loved it there and was sad to hear Dad sold it as part of a divorce settlement. I doubt Mom lost sleep over it, but in later years, she would smile and say Good times whenever I brought it up. The camper on the mountain top is just one more story remembered with select parts forgotten as I look out the window of my 1957 Chevy alone by choice.

MO

The circus parade.

 He held his grandad's hand while walking alongside the greatest show on earth's parade. He had been waiting for weeks as the posters were hung, and the town got ready. The circus train would stop just outside the small town, and the parade of animals would begin there and end at the big empty field next to the firehouse. The town folk, mainly consisting of school kids and seniors, lined the main street waiting for the animals to be alongside them so they could be a part of the greatest moment of their lives. Grandad pulled up a couple of wooden crates he found alongside the firehouse, and they sat watching all the going on as they ate sandwiches Grandma made for them. With the help of men and elephants, the giant tents were pulled into place as both young and old held their breath at this magnificent sight. They had the best seats in the house to watch as the circus came alive as if a gust of happiness was spread across a once-abandoned field that no one seemed to care about. Grandad put the crates back where he found them, and the boy took his hand as they walked in silence, waiting to tell Grandma about their day.

MO

Just a room

 It's just on the other end of my trailer, but I call it my office. It's where the creative juices flow and memories flood back to me. The walls are covered with the past, all of which I need not think hard to summon. Each picture tells a story like someone's young life as a kid, joining the army and never coming home again. It tells a love story in the form of an obituary and a life that never ran its course. There was a picture that spoke to me when I purchased it from a garage sale, not knowing who it was, and even an old gold-painted frame empty of any memories it once framed and hung on a wall halfway up the stairway of a mansion in the South. As I look upward, a row of burlesque photographs banned when taken and now revered as an art form all but forgotten. It's just another room at the end of my trailer, but it's my room filled with stories yet to be written, tears yet to fall, and smiles to myself as I am the only reader.

MO