Page 10 - Firehouse Pond

RETURN TO MY ROOTS

YOU CAN RETURN TO YOUR BIRTHPLACE
DON’T EXPECT IT TO BE THE SAME

My grandparent’s house, 1948
DH

A tiny little boy is born on the kitchen table of a run-down, tin-roofed shack
in Charleston, Missouri. He is the baby of the family and would be reminded

of that fact numerous times during the next seventy-one years.

I am that little boy; these are my stories. My family was dirt-poor. My father

was a veteran of World War II who became a mean spirited alcoholic.

One day, unexpectedly, my brother called me. I was serving on active duty
with the Army at Fort Hood, Texas; nearly eight hundred miles away.

It was a hot summer day in 1982, he asked me to meet him in Charleston
because there was serious family trouble pertaining to our father. I had not

seen or spoken to my father in over fifteen years.

As asked, I returned to my birthplace. My young son begged to go, I allowed

it; it was a mistake. We visited my aunt and uncle for only a few minutes. I
felt every bit the stranger I was. Things just didn’t feel right being there.