|
 Two kids were arguing just outside my window the
other day. Now that school’s out, they have more time for the
important issues of life, of course. This time, the subject was
ghosts and whether or not they are real.
People my age have to plead guilty to the capital crime of having
gray hair, and therefore aren’t qualified to participate in such
weighty matters. But if they had asked me, they might have been
surprised. Of course there are ghosts. We’re surrounded by them.
Maybe they aren’t scary or grab you from behind, but they are ghosts
just the same. See that rusting tank on the edge of town? That’s all
that’s left from when George Dodson started that tannery back in the
1920s. He was doing all right then, until the Great Depression came
along, and George and the steel tank became ghosts … a part of our
history, but still somehow here with us, still a part of what makes
this community our home.
Just up Lewis Creek a mile are the sloping concrete walls of what
used to be a dairy. As kids, we’d sneak over … quietly, so we didn’t
spook the cows … and watch the men milking. The huge Holsteins
walked in from force of habit like animated milk factories, which
they were. Seems like there should be something someone could do
with that old milking barn. Now it’s just hard to go by and see the
weeds thickening around it as it lies there in the unrelenting sun
and cracks to pieces. [to top of second
column] |
Down on Main Street is the old
ice cream store where we used to go the very first time we had nerve
enough to ask a girl to go with us. We’d bite the ends off the
drinking straw covers, dip the remaining ends in chocolate syrup,
and shoot them with a puff of breath to stick on the ceiling, like
stalactites of young love.
But today it holds the video rental store. Times change. Businesses
change.
People come and then leave us. But the ghosts remain. And the ghosts
are the ones who make us what we are today.
I wish those kids would ask me about them.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by “A
Cowboy’s Guide to Growing Up Right” by Slim Randles. Buy one for
that problem kid down the street. Only $2.99 on Amazon.com.
 |
