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dave2big
80 / male
somewhere, Nebraska, US
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i took a ride
Last week after receiving my Social Security check, i decided to take a ride through my old neighborhood. i lived about ten miles northeast of my hometown as a boy and wanted to see the places i lived while growing up.when i turned off the highway, i noticed Verns old place had been completely dozed out,just a cornfield now.Vern played baseball with my dad on the local town team,and i remembered him injuring an ankle and dad and another guy carrying him to his car so his wife could take him to the hospital. i must have been about five then. two more miles east, i thought, and i will be at "the south corner". there was a natural spring there,with four or five huge cottonwood trees,grass,weeds and natural cover for deer,pheasants,squirrels and rabbits. at the corner.....nothing now but more cornfields.hmmm, i remember riding my bicycle that far one spring day after my dad had paddled my butt for something i had done wrong. i must have been eight or so,and i had decided to run away !i got that far,got scared and rose right back home,only to get another spanking .i must have been eight. as i turned north again, my eyes turned northeast to see if i could spot the trees along the river close to my boyhood home. odd i thought, cant see the old place,no house,no huge machine shed,hmmmm then i remembered, i was fifteen and it was time to start walking bean rows cutting the weeds out , by hand using a hoe , or a cornknife. i laughed to myself remembering my brothers "timely" jump from a tree and landing on a board with a nail,driving it into his foot ! while my grandfather,dad and i were working,he sat in a chair with his injured foot up watching tv !i must have been thirteen then.when i got to where the lane to our place SHOULD have been,i noticed someone had taken the road out,it just wasnt there anymore,hmmm,how odd. i noticed the road had been moved two hundred yards north,just on the edge of Donnies driveway (a neighbor when i lived there)and all the trees were gone next to the river.i thought back to the day in the spring when i had proudly driven my new car in that terribly muddy driveway,just to show it off to my parents and my brother. i was nineteen then.suddenly memories began to wash over me,mom laughing at something on the radio,me listening to her sing when i was just a little boy. her voice was so high and sweet.my dad,in a rage,picking up a four-hundred anvil and the block of cottonwood it sat on ,and slamming the whole works into the back of my grandads pickup,my brother pitching a nearly perfect game against a neighboring legion bseball team.as i sat there remembering the past,a car approached from behind me and a pleasant young guy stopped,rolled down his window and asked , "Sir, are you lost"? with an effort i smiled and said i wasnt,just driving around and he drove away. i now know that all i really accomplished that day was to say my final goodbye to the past............
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| August 10, 2008, 08:37 |
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User no longer registered.
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Re: i took a ride
Very nice dave....there's something that does sweeten the soul a bit when you travel back to where we came from.
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| August 10, 2008, 11:44 |
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User no longer registered.
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Re: i took a ride
Dave, as I was reading your story, I reflected on some of my childhood memories and haven't taken one of those rides in years. Thank you for sharing this, wonderful hun! 
... xox
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| August 10, 2008, 12:43 |
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