Loving Places, People and Things

Loving Places People and Things

I still can see the sunlight
filtering through the Pecan and Oak trees
onto the street in front of our house.
The smell of Mimosa in the front yard.

The skinned knees from sidewalk skates.
I think I still have my skate key.
The sounds of the Blue Jays squawking at our cat
as she crept across the side yard.

Playing with lead soldiers in the dirt floor garage
behind the house.
I don't ever remember seeing a car in that garage.
Just junk and bicycle parts and dusty boards.
We used sticks to try to coax the Doodlebugs
out of their cone shaped holes in the dust.

The Privet Hedge beside the driveway had a giant
Wild Cherry Tree growing in it. The tree was taller than our house
and we would sneak out the upstairs window at night
to go play Kick The Can and throw rocks at bats under the street lamp.

We would walk down to the River nearby and swim and fish and
catch Crawfish and Mussels.
The river mud always had a distinctive smell that
I would recognize anywhere.

The Sheer Terror of walking across the Railroad Trestle
and getting caught half way by the train.
Luckily there was a little balcony like thing I could stand on
and watch the wheels of the train taller than my head throwing sparks at they
flew past. A cloud of diesel smoke to remind me not to do that again.

Our house was built by my mother and father with their own hands.
I was born at the little hospital just across the street.

I loved every rock, every tree, every squirrel, every sound and smell.
They are etched into my brain.

The six years I spent there from the time I was born until First Grade
was the only time in my life that felt like Home to me.
My grandparents, parents and several brothers, sisters, nieces and
nephews are buried alongside the Confederate Soldiers who tried in vain
to defend the town and Fort Tyler in one of the last battles of the Civil War.
They all are buried not far from that house.

I was sure I could fly and could walk through walls
and when moving day came I told everybody that if my home made cardboard wings didn't get on the moving van I was not going either.

I have lived in many places since then.
Some good, some miserable, but that was the only place I actually loved and remember as being my home. No place has ever come close to that feeling.

Now I live in an old house that desperately needs repair
but I live with my Wife of twenty eight years. So where ever we are is Home now.
We are two sides of the same coin. I am nothing without her.

But I know Love can be for not just people and pets. It can be for places, smells, sounds, things that make you who you are.

© Dec. 12, 2012 Philip G. DeLoach