It is said that we spend half of our lives trying to get away from home and the other half trying to get back. Man has always had a homing instinct that forced him to try to see life through a rear view mirror. It is a desire to resurrect the past as it once was, to reclaim the good memories that are no more. That is forbidden by the future. History is our catalog of memories, to be cherished individually and very personally. Why can't we just leave it that way?.....JWB

GOING HOME

Fall was in the air as each mile brought me closer to the end of my trip. I was finally going home. Not where I live today, but my boyhood home. I had traveled two thousand miles for this moment, and now that it was at hand the apprehensive feeling in the pit of my stomach intensified. As the last few miles slid away under the wheels of my car, I had time to think. I knew what I hoped to see, but at the same time I was fearful of what I would find. For the past few miles I had begun to see occasional reminders of the past, like Miller’s store, now closed with the porch falling off. I remember when, on Saturday afternoons, it was the gathering place for men and boys from miles around.

I just passed the crossroad where I caught a ride early one morning on a summer day when coming home after an all-night fishing trip with my buddies. There is an old sign leaning at a precarious angle near the road. Only a few words can still be read. It is advertising a product that no longer exists. As I drove along I noticed several other sights that triggered memories of a time long ago.

My objective was to recapture the high points of my life as a youth with my family and to refresh the store of pleasant memories as my own life winds toward its inevitable end after eighty-one years. As I got closer to the end of my journey, details began to come back to mind, each episode clear with memories of events, the private moments and the good and bad times.

Some of these were the Sunday dinners after church when the whole family would be around the table. I could see them clearly in my mind’s eye. I even remembered where everyone sat. Then there was the excitement of packing for a trip on a train, or the turmoil of the family preparing to go to a ball game or church picnic, or some other function, always taking a basket of cold fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs with pickles, sandwiches, cookies and other delicacies for desert like homemade syrup cakes and pies. Food seemed to taste better when eaten off a tablecloth spread on the grass, even if an occasional ant tried to steal a bit.

There were the sober moments when one of the young people announced a pending marriage, and the excitement and preparation that followed as the whole family joined in getting ready for the big event. Sometimes there was the death of a friend or distant family member, or my mother going to help a sick relative during a time of crisis. Occasionally there were anxious moments when sickness invaded our own family.

During the winter, being the youngest boy, I would be sent to meet the postman with several handwritten notes, asking him to drop them off at certain houses on his route. The notes told of a "quilting party" that was to be held at our house the following Friday. He did that free. That was a part of life in the country.

I couldn't help but smile to myself as I remembered that tired and satisfied feeling after a hard day's work in the fields and the shock of cold water on our backs after working in the hot sun. That was something no one could ever forget. There was the thrill of the last plowing before the crop was laid-by to wait for harvesting. The watermelons were kept in the shade of the yard trees to keep them cool. I could nearly taste the sweetness of the bright red meat.

As I continued my drive, I remembered how the wind blew across the wheat, making it bow and sweep back and forth in great, gentle waves. Then there was the rustling noise made by the drying corn fodder as the breeze blew through it just before harvest time. Hearing our hunting dogs chase some animal late in the afternoon and their bark echoing across the pasture. Even if you were talking to someone else, you had one ear tuned to the dogs, wishing you were there. All of that was music to the ears of a farm boy. I just passed the old dilapidated ruin of the Robert’s home place. I was reminded that in those days neighbors were true friends, and you were comfortable with the prospect that if you ever needed them, they would be there for you without reservation, and you for them. Nobody ever said it out loud, nobody had to.

No farm boy can ever forget animals that had become a part of the farm family being sold to the stockyards. We knew where they were headed, and somehow, I think they also knew. My brothers and I would go fishing before the truck arrived to pick them up.

Then there were the few times when we had to face the sad truth that to let a sick or lame animal live in torment and pain was unconscionable and it had to be destroyed. "That's a part of farm life," we were told. We would still get watery eyes and look away so the others wouldn't see. We would get over it in time and realize that it was the right thing to do.

Most of all, I wanted to remember our family where I knew them best--in our home. To see where my mother planted flowers with loving care in carefully tended beds. I smiled to myself. Maybe I would be able to collect pecans from the trees planted by my father so many years ago. I wondered if the remnants of the fenced lane my father built to guide the cows home for milking would still be there. In my mind's eye I could still see them walking in single file down that lane headed toward the barn at milking time, their udders full and bouncing off their legs. We knew each one by name. They knew which was their stall and went to it without a word being said by any of us.

I wondered if our "state of the art" corn crib still stood. My father, brothers and I built it one winter. It was rat-proof, according to the farm journal.

I longed to taste the sweet water from the deep, cool well that served so many purposes, like keeping milk cool and butter from melting in the summer. Nobody gave a thought to whether it met purification standards or not. Our gauge was that nobody got sick or died from drinking it and it tasted wonderful, so it must have been okay. It was my job to keep the dirt banked up on the side of the well house to keep out ground water.

There were the arguments between my brothers and me about whose turn it was to fill the water trough for the livestock while the others filled the wood boxes.

Monday was laundry day, if it didn't rain. It was my job to build a fire under the black wash pot in the yard after I had half filled it with well water. Tuesday was ironing day. I was relegated to the task of keeping the stove wood box filled so the fire would keep the hand irons hot.

It was easy to remember the winters, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were the most memorable and my favorites because the family seemed to be closer then. We would hover around the log fire in the big fireplace, cold on one side and hot on the other. Mother would have a shawl over her shoulders while she sat in her special chair. We children would turn around and around in front of the fire to keep from toasting one side too long. There were winter evenings when we roasted peanuts and a few chestnuts in the hot coals. Occasionally we ate pecans, even after being warned by Mother that to drop a piece of a greasy pecan on the floor would bring a fate worse than death.

Crop working days usually began before daylight with the sharp noise of the hand-cranked, coffee bean grinder in the kitchen. It was the signal to get up and wash your face and hands. Soon came the clarion call of "breakfast is ready" from Mother with the built-in threat not to be late or suffer the wrath of God. She reminded us regularly that, "If I took the time and trouble to prepare it, you had better come to the table and eat it." Nobody was exempt from that mandate.

When we walked into the dining room, our nostrils were hit with the smell of hot biscuits fresh out of the oven. On the table were preserves made from the fruit of our trees, fresh butter, churned the day before from our cows' milk and syrup from the sugar cane grown in the low area next to the blacksmith shop and cooked by my father and brothers each fall.

As soon as everyone was seated, my sisters would bring platters piled high with fried eggs that were laid the day before by the yard hens. That was followed by the platter of sausage or bacon and ham and, of course, those pans of piping hot biscuits. There was fresh coffee for the grown-ups from the enamel pot on the back of the stove and glasses of cool milk for us children. Who could ever forget the marvelous smells from my mother's kitchen?

Top that with cheerful conversation and instructions about the work assignments for the day, and you have a picture of how our day started on our small farm.

A particularly pleasant time was the bright spring mornings when the mockingbirds started the day off with their own "good morning" song.----  

Ed Note   As they say in show business, there wasn't a dry eye in the house after reading Jack W. Boone's short stories.  That is certainly the case here.  You can feel the emotion as it surges through your body with each story.  A wonderful and memorable gift to a loved one.