THIS EVERYDAY LIFE

Well the day turned out to be a memeborable one. One that I did not anticipate when I got up to start my day. Checking my to do schedule, I saw "board up the old house". You see my father (86Yr,) sold part of the homestead property to the state DOT for a new street to be made. Well along with the planned street, we were sure that traffic would increase to the point the young man cwould not be abled to egress. Well heck even before the anticipated road was finished traffic picked up termendously. Everyone on the street was having problems leaving their property. Thinking back on my childhood, the street was just sand and gravel. More sand after a hard rain. Back in those days there was a constant possibility of rain. Not like now, when drought conditions reign as king of the weather forecasts.

Well to cut to the chase, he had another home built. One in a location with far less traffic. Same neighborhood but far less traffic.

Called a workman to do the job. But had to go over and point out exactly had to be done. Let me back up a tad here and explain the reason for boarding the place up. It seems like every since his departure, the vacant house has been constantly under seige from vandals. There has even been reports of the premises being a venue for illegal drug trafficting. So something had to be done. Hence the boarding of the house.

Watching the workman, I suddenly became anxious and at the same time sad. You see viewing that house brought back so many pleasant and a few unpleasant memories. It is the house I grew up in. Christmas, family gatherings and just plain going through both the pleasures and pains of maturing. It brought memeories of a mother's touch, her warmth, compassion and admonition of. "boy I just don't know what I am going to do with you." A father's stern but loving measures to instill in me the ways of maturing into manhood. Football, baseball and basketball games between me and my siblings, when the other neighborhood kids couldn't make it. My breaking my sister's nose, the time she took the catcher's position. Thinking back on it, the gal was the best damn catcher in the neighborhood. Later on after college, she had it fixed at the Mayo clinic. When describing to the family the procedure used, everyone in the family waited in still silence. You see, its like this, the doctors used some bone or cartilege from her hip. Mabe it was both, it was so very long ago I've forgotten. The stillness was broken by my baby brother when he in a whispered voice, "gal you mean to say you're breathing out of your ass! Needless to say everyone split a gut. Even mama could be seen stifling a laugh. As for my sister, lets just leave it at no one ever mentioned that operation again. As for me, I still wonder if the woman has ever forgiven me for being the perpetrator. I think that over the years I have aplogized to her a million times. Although she calvalierly dismiss it as an accident, I still get an "I wonder feeling".

I know that our plans are to fix the house up to lease but even at that the full impact of no more kinsman abiding in the place really made me sad.

I aoso thought about the colonists leaving their homes to venture in to an uncharted land. Man that must have been some leave taking. Hell I even thought about all the people-African-Americans and Europeans. One set bound for voluntary migration, the other set eventually bound for involuntary immigration and the Native Americans sometimes voluntary, but in most cases involuntarily forced from the homes of their ancesters. I think the archeologist and historians refer to it as immigration push. But no matter the realization of leaving home for whatever reason is memory burdensome.