Life in my world, the history of my life, seems like such a small, insignificant speck of dust on the timeline of world history. Each of us lives our own life in a relatively small frame of time that we are allotted on this spinning globe. Life slips away at breakneck speed and indeed is "a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away". Life is full of peaks and valleys, ups and downs and is sometimes wonderful and sometimes not so much, but along those hills and hollows of our respective journeys come memories that stamp lasting impressions on our minds. The following is a recollection of some of the memories in my life and thoughts on how these events may have shaped me into who I am today.
There are only two memories that I can recall of my mother who, as mentioned earlier in my life history, passed away during the fourth year of my life. One of those memories is of me standing behind the couch to try to get away from her because I'd done something of which she did not approve. The other is walking into the house after I had split my head open from a fall while playing on the carport and seeing her approaching me to see what was wrong. Then she stood over me and helped hold me down while the doctor sewed my head. Sad, isn't it? But that is all the memory of my mother that my four year old mind stored away! Losing my mother at such a young age and having almost no memory of her has influence my personality to a degree that even I do not fully grasp. No doubt this is the reason that it touches me so deeply to hear of a very young child losing a parent.
Starting to school is another memory that forever shaped, or warped, me in such a way as to stick firmly in my mind. For the first month of my school career, I cried every morning the second the bus pulled into the parking lot and although the crying stopped after that the way I felt about school never really changed. Yes, there were some really great times in my experiences during those educational years but the whole going to class and learning deal never seemed to give me any kind of warm, fuzzy feeling. In these adult, real world years I've come to realize how very important education is in life and try to spread that message to as many young folks as opportunity presents. Education opens doors to those who take advantage of that treasure that may otherwise be unavailable.
Memories of hunting with my Dad have remained etched in my memory bank as well. He is a tall, big man and trying to keep up with him as we hunted for squirrel and quail was no easy task for a five year old boy, but those are memories that have endured time. At ten years old, Dad gave me my first shotgun and I've still got that old gun. Sometime after my twelfth birthday, we started deer hunting. Neither of us really knew much about it but we had some great adventures on those hunts. We were hunting one time around Smith Lake and Dad was going to walk around a patch of woods to try to "drive" a deer by me and left me sitting on a stump. Well, he got lost and was gone for a very long time and I was getting more frightened by the minute. After a long while, I heard something walking through the woods and called out, "Daddy"! The next sound was a tremendous splash as something jumped into the lake. To this day I've always figured it was probably that monster buck of my dreams. Shortly afterward, much to my relief, Dad finally found his way back. We enjoyed several hunting trips over the next few years. We always camped in a tent and sometimes we'd get really cold trying to sleep at night, but those are memories that have stuck with me to this day.
Sometimes things happen that you wish had never taken place and even more you wish you could forget. Two such events are filed away in my mind. First, there was the night of that horrific accident in which three people lost their lives. As the story goes, against her parent's wishes, a young lady left for a date with her boyfriend who reportedly had been drinking. Half a mile from our house they ran a stop sign and were hit by two cars traveling in opposite directions. Their car wrapped around a tree and burned. They and a passenger in one of the other vehicles were killed. Our entire family walked to the end of the road that night and the sight of that wreck is forever branded in my mind. Secondly, there was my friend Stacy. I'd really only gotten to know him over the summer that year. He and I lived on opposite ends of a two mile stretch of road and both of us, along with a couple of other boys that lived nearby, spent a lot of the summer riding bikes and playing in a creek just down the road. It was maybe November of that year that he and another young man were hunting and they were riding to another hunting spot on a motorcycle. The gun was loaded and somehow went off and Stacy was killed. Although a horrible memory which has troubled me greatly, no doubt that produced in me a greater concern for safety from that day forward as I pursue my passion of deer hunting.
One other thing worth mentioning took place during my final year of high school. We were at a family gathering and by that time in his life Grandpa was showing signs of declining health. His brother-in-law was there and made a comment about a man he knew who was still flying his own airplane at the age of 80. Grandpa was 76 at the time and apparently the comment was an effort to make him feel better about his age. A few weeks later, Grandpa and the rest of the family attended the brother-in-law's funeral – he dropped dead from a heart attack. Life is fleeting and none of us knows when we will pass into the next realm. Enjoy the good things in life while you can!
Though there are so many other memories tucked away in my mind from those early years, these mentioned probably have had the greatest influence on who I am today at the age of 53. My prayer is that I, the man sculpted by these influences, can take what life has helped me become and guide my children and grandchildren in ways most beneficial to them and the people they come in contact with during their lives.
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