On a Prayer

Dedicated to the loving memory of Mrs. Dorothy Carson whose prayers are still working...

                                

Within the first painful moments of waking, I didn’t give the dream much more thought.
 It’s hard to say if the lucid descent of falling into a pile of fish was symbolic of something profound, infinitely divine or simply had to do with waking up with a bad hangover to find myself sleeping alone, four feet off the ground, on a three tier stack of sagging old mattresses while Billy, and who I guessed was Lana and Susan, from last night, were snoring laboriously in a tangled carnal heap on the bed next to me.

Oh Damn!, I winced with a looming dread of temporary amnesia as thoughts began forming fragmented pictures and were trying to emerge unwanted, that I fought back hoping I had not at any time been remotely involved or by drunken chance or circumstance, even fallen anywhere in the direction of that other springless, lopsided tower of a bed, be it invited or not. It never fails us that we can turn any night upside down and backwards and I haven’t seen Billy in almost a decade and you would think I never left.

I silently found myself begging and pleading in the muddled sobering moments for no regrets I would remember in the next few minutes or at least before I was long gone. Billy would have argued, ‘it’s all good brotha!,’ He would say he was doing me a favor as our long past history would attest to, but this night I had only planned on just passing through after years of hiatus and ended up staying a little too long. There had been so much to catch up on and time just got carried away and as usual took on a direction of its own.

I figure it was nothing I couldn’t handle as I sifted hurriedly for a long anxious moment, editing through the faded remnants and fragments of the night and was somewhat relieved that nothing carnal or illegal was floating in the circle of thoughts and that I still had all my fingers and toes intact. But then again, the worst does always present itself a day or moment too late and might just catch me later in a jaw dropping surprise.

So much for the past, I thought. I didn't have time to be consumed or linger. All would soon be  irrelevant of events of the past 48 hours. I now was faced with the laborious task of how to get out of the room unnoticed and for the most pressing dilema, I simply had to pee like a son of a bitch. Meanwhile, simultaneously my head was coming alive like an am radio stuck between stations on full blast. I could almost see my hearts outline as it struggled to get a rhythm along with the feeling of metal shards flowing through my veins. How much cheap booze did I drink? I knew I had to get up and move before I turn to dust or stone!

The hazy room, now layered in textures through foggy eyes, radiated a coarse heat all consumed in unconscious breaths and the sticky air of sweaty acidic flesh breathing in gasping deep buckets of air that spun me into instant nauseous vertigo. I tried not to gag as I pulled myself up. Slowly I rolled up like the blob of a giant lava lamp.

It didn’t really matter at this point and might forever be a questionable blackout as to what all went on in the early hours but as I glanced up, it was clear that it all happened in the wide-open gaze of Gods eye and now my dream began to make sense. God, being that Billy’s oldest brother Larry, who had become a fairly decent artist, and self proclaimed painter be it house painter, car or canvas, had painted, in his signature style, a huge sunburst, black-light, fluorescent image of Jesus himself with a full afro floating against a baby blue sky and fluffy clouds that spanned across the whole ceiling and blended into the matching blue walls.  It was still there as I remembered when we were just kids, staring down upon us unchanged for years except for a water stain here and there, the blue hues had slightly faded and the white doves now a shade of gray, but it was still there as big as life staring forlornly down upon us. That one painting, (and perhaps the Indian ink cross tattoo on my forearm) would always be a key element or premonition as one of the first glimpses, a sign in my life, that I would look at the world and God a little askew and slightly tilted off its axis- and rightly so.

I internally shook my head taking it all in and spying at everything through gritty smoke burned eyes at such familiarities that I could no longer relate to after so many years being gone. I gazed at the shifting of bodies like watching an abstract theater play and ballet unbearably real and sad.

I breathed in and out a silent breath feeling chest pains revealing my own shame and making me all to aware and present to my own tarnished and damned soul that was somewhat lost and wandering much like in my dream. It perpetuated a constant sadness inside that’s always just below the surface.

Here I go, I thought clenching my teeth and standing up knowing no better time than the present to clear out. I got up in a child like attempt to be invisible. Hoping I could exit and flee unnoticed. I slowly coward toward the door as if tiptoeing on razor blades and floor splinters. I cut delicate through the breaking silence of hushed moans stirring. 

It was the longest yard as if anticipating the drop of a guillotine or lightning bolt striking me down.

I passed through the opened doorway pausing momentarily to look back in disbelief and mixed regrets before quietly turning to make my way on the creaking floor and down the narrow hallway lined with shadows and ghosts illuminated by a single naked bulb. It was a long dilapidated stretch of wall paper faded and rubbed smooth by country life of countless generations flowing through here like a constant river.

This old place had been so much a part of my youth, my second home, my alternate universe.  It had been years since I had been back here, but consciously I still remember every loose floorboard, wall stain, and ceiling crack. And though our worlds had taken such extreme different paths, this home would always be as much a part of me as my own skin and bones.

These old walls were now in such dire condition, it’s a wonder its still standing, surviving not only a few tornadoes and the wrath of a hundred years of pounding foot traffic, but also the encroaching city moving slowly in and around any given space around this country town, devouring all in its path. I’m sure this old house is slated for removal on the desktop papers of some Bank or real estate office far far away from here. Miles around, from here to San Marcus had already been bought up and stripped clean to topsoil and limestone. This house was prime because of how many acres it sits on. The property stretched from 'Kitchen's' baseball field all the way to the entrance of San Leanna Estates and all the way in the backfields to Slaughter creek where our 'Pretty pool' ran deep. We could ride our horses Dumas and Dixie at a full run for 5 acres before even slowing down. Greedy men were chomping at the bit to put a fancy white cookie cutter sub-division in here and give it some typical gated community name like mountain creek cedar...even though there's no mountains within a thousand mile of here. But regardless of its rickety structure, or the future of this little town even long after every board and nail is gone, it will always be home and a sanctuary to me if just in my heart.

I continued gingerly creeping down the hall with familiar faces staring back at me from old crooked faded picture frames. I smiled warmly amused to see a picture of myself still hanging there, skinny as a bean pole, taken from more than 10 years ago with me holding a pool cue.

I remember back in the day, it would be normal to have 20 or more people spread throughout the house and scattered in every corner from sofa to kitchen floor.

On weekends we used to show up late with an entourage from the Rosewood and Chicon, the far east side Housing Projects, after late nights hustling pool at Gameworld pool hall just east of downtown on 12^th street that was more reminiscent of a ‘delta juke joint’ than pool hall. It was obvious where that picture of me on the wall was taken.

4th of July

 On most weekends for that matter, here at the house it could get real confusing back then even to family alike as to who was a relative or not running through the ins and outs of this old house. Any one of them could be a first, a second or third cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew and whole handful of grand kids or the likes of some stranger that nobody knew. God forbid if you are ever out here on a Fourth of July when you would be a hundred deep into relatives and kinfolk from Kile to Ft Worth. Not unusual to meet an uncle or cousin for the first time. I myself clearly stood out like a sore thumb and although I might be the only white person seen around here through three waves of people from Sunday to Monday, I was still considered first rung family by all, and even if someone didn’t know me, they had probably heard of me or would know before the day was out because you know they were going to ask and not so much for  being that I was white, but that I was white and pranced around here cool as a cucumber like I owned the place with a trail of snot nosed little kids following me like they were my own. The same went for me down on the East side in the city where the Satterwhite clan, who were the flip side of this family, had ruled that neck of the woods. It was no doubt, the east side was far darker side of town in every way by comparison to here and clearly where I stood out even more with perplexed suspicious confusion and wide eyed wonder by most. I raised more than a few eyebrows here and there, but even so, I knew someone always had my back especially Brad Satterwhite who was King and ruler of the east side, the crowned emperor of a monarch be it the dismal 'projects' or a castle, and for as long as anyone could remember, he went unchallenged by anyone around town especially after winning four weight lifting and body building championships and closely matched by his younger brother Ruben  who won several ‘Golden Gloves' titles in boxing. It was enough to make them feared by some and a neighborhood hero to others. For the most part though, it was Billy’s older brothers Mike and the older soulful intellectual we called Southside that kept us safe and stayed within arms reach of us most of the time. It just so happened that the Satterwhites had married into different parts of the family and Ruben was a brother in law marrying Billy’s older sister Nacy who always looked pretty like a movie-star. Needles to say, I trusted that even my skinny white butt was protected pretty much all around, which didn’t mean I didn’t have a few touchy run-ins here and there, but assured myself, (or was just lucky) that someone always happened to step up in my defense before things got out of hand especially the older brothers Alvin or 'Southside'.
'Southside' i can still hear saying,"let me educate you people on 'Whitefolks' here".

We tried to stay within the proximity of Game-World and rarely drifted through the neighborhood and only occasionally to a craps game in the lower projects.

We never knew or questioned back then all the complexities and ventures of Brad's or the other Satterwhite brothers life, or their coming and goings but for one thing Brad owned Game-World and had enough confidence to back our pool winnings even though we were the youngest around of a new generation, but granted, it was true that we could three out of four times clear a pool table on anyone with a dollar to spare and were a sure bet against even for the best of hustlers, (except for maybe this one kid, a 10 year old hustler named Junebug which is a story in itself),

It’s true I might not have single handedly broke up any racial isolation east or west of I-35, but they did have my own t-shirts made for me with 'Whitefolks' ironed on the back and the name Gameworld centered over a rack of pool balls on the front of a pool table green T-shirt, same as the one I’m wearing in that faded picture on the wall.  'Whitefolks' was the nickname Brad bestowed upon me on the first day. We were as good as it gets with a pool cue and maybe we innocently being young and naive put ourselves in dangers way deep in a grownups world but we survived another day and even if we didn’t make it back home to the country for playing all night, we were trusted with the keys to lock up the place where come noon the next day, you would find our tired asses sleeping on a bench inside the pool hall even though knowing poor Mama Carson was praying worried to death back in the country that we just one time might not make it back home. We would spend time during closing hours sharpening up our fancy bank shot skills before making the long trek back home.

Back here at the shack, it was pure country and a far cry from the city and a little scary for some of those that were all ghetto and had never came further south than Riverside drive. We on the other hand adapted to any environment be it here or there. We were a gang of modern Troubadours and when we would show up downtown, in their own impoverished yet jubilant neck of the woods, looking trim, all spit shined, dressed to the nines, and white walls glowing, you never would have figured we had been climbing up and down a goose-neck trailer bailing hay or setting fence posts all day.  Most of the clothes were hand sewn from hip pattern books by Billy's older sisters and were so impressive that Billy earned the title of 'Bessed Dressed' in our Jr High yearbook.

We rolled into town like Rock Stars, although we did in fact roll in at times in the lime green pinto of Southside's with its long white CB whip antenna stretched from bumper to bumper, left over from the brief era of CB-mania. Still, there was no question when we arrived, that we floated in on respect of the coat tails of a really big extended family with a long legacy, be it good and bad, loathed and loved.



We were undeniably an integral part of the true hustle and flow pulse the now outdated, misunderstood and exploited groove of so called ‘negro’ culture, now faded into history with “negro” now a footnote as offensive slang, But at the time it was strutting colorful pride, and this neighborhood was thriving at sundown like a big ghetto block party where the streets felt non of the economic hardships and moved rhythmically to the booming base of four way speakers rising out of the stream of pimped-out slick cars cruising 12^Th street with curb feelers shimmering, moving as if on Sunset Strip in Hollywood. And just next door, as the night wore on, a flow of sweaty bodies and  billowing menthol smoke spilled happily intoxicated out of Chester’s nightclub and onto the street in their Disco funk stretch polyester while drifting sideways on platform heels to the echoing smooth soulful R&B fading as the door closed behind them.

                                                     

Those days were long gone but the memories as fresh as the day.

A neighborhood tamed and gentrified now and somewhat forgotten except for those of us who lived through it. it was a time of Soul Heaven reflected in the lyrics of Barry White, Sly, The Ohio Players, War, Isley brothers, Al Green, Marvin Gay, O'Jays, Curtis.... The AM Dj's looped the hit tracks non stop that blasted from street corner to Heaven. 

The prettiest girl I had ever seen back then was Brandy Sims a tall pretty light skin girl that hung outside at Game-World on weekends. She weaved vibrantly through the crowd like a gazelle, tall, skinny and elegant. Her face was like those of one generation separated from some gilded African tribe with high cheekbones, full afro and golden green Asiatic eyes. I was too young and shy to approach her back then but I caught her, out of the corner of my eye, watching me enough times to think she liked me, although she might have just been thinking I was a crazy fool of a white boy to be out here at all. And then, like a prayer, it just so happened that she made it out to the house on one of those weekend night excursion. She must have thought she went to the moon being out here in the dark away from the streetlights of the city. I didn’t want to leave the house for a minute when I knew she was here. I remember sitting on the porch peaking through the window to see what she was doing. She was noticeably bored and out of place or just plain scared.

 Billy had snuck out his daddy’s rot-gut MD 20/20 and what was left of some Thunderbird wine. It was a little better of a Bum wine than Ripple and was better than cheap weed to get your spirit and courage up but would give you one mean headache in the morning much like the one I now had.

By the time midnight came around Billy and me were laughing like fools and damn near punching each other off the porch like foolish kids. Everyone else had already gone to bed including Brandy. 

I being silly drunk and at the time in our life when all we thought about were girls, sex and food  in no certain order decided i was going to make my move on Brandy. I stumbled boldly back into the house holding up the walls and was going to sneak down this same hall hoping to get a glimpse of what I could only imagine was her silky naked black skin that I envisioned in this heat only covered by shimmering beads of sweat like wet pearls, but before I even made it two steps to nowhere, Billy had started playing Richard Pryor records loud on the kitchen table with older brother Southside and every time I would take one step in the general direction of the bedroom where I last saw her, Billy would blurt out a line verbatim in my direction from the record, ” That Niggers Crazy” and in my giggling drunk stupor I would fall like a happy wino onto the linoleum floor laughing so hard I cried and couldn’t get back up. Billy used to put his face right up to the records as not to miss a word. You would think he was watching TV. He knew every line and we burned through every record a hundred times and could recite them down to a T and sure enough, he was just as funny if not funnier to me than Richard Pryor himself.

Sadly I never even got to know Brandy very well. By the time I saw her again it was some six months later she was pregnant and hanging with a parking lot pimp of a hustler twice her age who strutted around like a fool with his fake gangster limp.  I hated the sight of him with his little head and skinny crow like hands draped on her hunched shoulders. She never looked my way again and her green eyes looked gray and quiet.

We really didn’t do a whole lot more back then anyway other than tease each other about girls and make half the stuff up. It was a lot of talk and mostly fool-hearted badgering back and forth in a battle of wits in an arena where i didn't stand a chance up against any of them. But I did get Billy good one day when I rode up on my bike to see him all torn up and coming out of the barn in the back sweating like a work horse with dust and hay sticking all over him. His half cousin Lynette was in tow right behind him looking worse for wear than he did. I know she was really just out there stacking hay with him for some spending money and with her big hands, she was as strong as any guy and though she was somewhat cute, except for those man hands, she was mean and dumb as a bag of hammers. I couldn’t help myself from taunting and laughing at the sight of them.

“Man what are you doing out there in that barn? Y‘all stay back! What’s that funky smell? Boy it smells like you burned up a whole can of Afro-sheen in a skillet!”

Big Mike and cousin Laura

I kept ribbing them over and over before they could say a word. “Oh man, I hope your Daddy don’t catch you and he’s looking for you right now.” Which I knew he wasn’t  because I had just seen him heading off in his truck on my way in but I almost busted a gut watching Billy’s face come apart and go retarded on me. It tickled the hell out of me even knowing he would spend the summer trying to turn this around on me but I was on a roll and couldn’t help myself.

“Damn Lynette, where you had your head girl? What’s up with that nappy lopsided fro of yours with hay stickin all out of it?”

She ran up and hit me in the arm so hard with those big hands as hard as any guy could and told me to what to do with myself in my puny white ass before storming off to the house. It hurt like hell but I couldn’t stop laughing while I held and rubbed my arm in real pain. I thought for a minute she broke it but I kept laughing like no tomorrow and Billy was laughing beside me just as hard.

Who knows though, he might have dipped his wick there after all being that she got so flustered, I teased him.
 It was all the more funny and insulting asking where her head had been because all the brothers around here swear black girls don’t go down south. But don’t believe that. I’ve known these girls to go down south around the world more than a couple times and likewise these same brothers claim and would swear on their mama that they themselves never ate from the vine but boy I can tell you, if walls could talk, it would sure make a bold faced liar out of just about every one of them whom all had more than just their hands twirling in the cookie jars.

It was all meant in guiltless fun and everything pretty much up in the air and fair game for teasing each other and nothing really much ever was rooted in truths. Our only hope was not to grow weary before our time.

Me and Billy 1974

Billy for the most part only had white girlfriends at the time and neither of us really cared for any local girls around here except for Serena and Cassidy and the rich Onion Creek country club girls across the highway.

Most of the local girls around here were not so much all-together bad girls per say but just lonely or mostly sweet hot tempered Mexican girls that want to lay with you and fight you at the same time. All too many around here wanting to believe in a Cinderella story that threads a generic vein of want and nostalgia through all the small towns around here and I guess maybe throughout the whole world.

Around here it seems they are busting to get out while at the same time hanging on for dear life much like Lana who had been around for as long as I could remember going nowhere fast.

I had almost reached the end of the hall before realizing I had forgot my boots back in the room and now had to go back and start all over again. The sweetness of the savored thoughts of past memories including the silk of Brandy’s skin was short lived and faded in an instance.

I moaned and groaned turning around dispersing my nostalgia with irritability.

This time I deliberately stomped back in like a dare, grabbing my boots at the end of the bed and grunting my blaming disapproval as if everyone but me was to blame for my aching suffering and delay.

Everyone was half awake now and stared silently bewildered at my intrusive rambling. I had stilled the room to my own embarrassment with nothing to say.

Billy knew I was leaving and chided me with mocking sarcasm by nodding with a coaxing wink in the direction of Lana just to get my goat as if offering her up to me as if nothing better to do. And he knew he got me. Reduced me to a bashful grin. After all I was the pathetic one here. They were the ones who knew how to ride a wave and soothe the edges of reality and not question it so much like I did.

Lana smiled up at me with clueless innocence while squeezing Billy’s neck lovingly.

“Take it easy Jimbo’, Billy said sincerely as I left out again

“I will see ya soon Billy”

I walked back out of the room for the last time with a parting salute nod of my head and over the shoulder wave. I crept on the outside edge of my bare feet back toward the front door now awake and fully present. No longer did family portraits stare up at me from the doily covered end tables and the couches and chairs that had loomed in the dark shadows like fat monsters were now just sad in their plastic slip-covers.

The Throne

“Lord have mercy on my soul and give me one more day”, I thought,
"And I’ll never have one like any of the last few". How many times have I said that? I seem to plead a lot with a God I barely believe in, and especially pray harder when fear of the future and the unknown creeps in.
I shifted my pants adjusting myself after a quick stop in the bathroom and sighed with light at the end of the tunnel now in an arms reach.
I was relieved when I finally went through the tethered screen door and across the trodden worn threshold that was worthy of an icon of generations passing through.

Horace carson

Out I stepped into the cool wide open dawn morning where the blasting white of the light stunned me. I eased down into the old sofa chair rocker on the rickety porch with such pleasing familiarity. I molded into the one comfortable place between the exposed cotton stuffing and springs. I couldn’t believe this old thing was still here. It made me smile. The sofa was so faded you couldn’t decipher what color it was- somewhere between a yellow orange and faded green. This old porch had held up under some serious weight over time. There had been no limit as to how many people would crowd on here for a spot out of the sun on those long hot summer weekends, and this chair was the prize spot but this was Mr. Carson’s throne, and if he were here, you didn’t question getting up and no one ever had to be asked twice especially from a man of very few words.

front fields

Breathing in the fresh humid air I could tell it was gonna be a real hot one today as I pulled on my boots. I squinted and stared off at the fields and caught sight of “Pup” the old yellow lab trotting the fence line of the hayfields trying to stir up field mice and cottontails. That old dog was still around and managed pretty well considering he had only three legs. Billy’s Daddy had shot one of em’ off one Thanksgiving after “Pup” dragged a whole turkey off the smoker. What amazed me was not that the dog was still alive but that it stuck around all these years and was about as happy as could be for a dog. He must have heard me coming out and the screen door slam shut. I watched him hop and spin around perking his head and ears up excitedly and without hesitation like a race horse at a starting gate, bolt with all his might up toward the house with his clumsy old fat wobbly run, wagging and slobbering happily all over the place.

That’s it, I figured I had better get going before he starts yapping and wakes everybody up. I shushed him but he still jumped up and slimes me with his stinky dew wet fur. “Get down you dirty mutt!” I whispered harshly. He cowered falling down onto his belly with a whimper still waggin his tail and trying to contain himself while inching forward on his haunches. “Stay down there”, I again scolded him. I ached all over, moaned as I leaned back again on the old sofa chair. I rubbed my brow hard with both hands and pressed my eyeballs to the back of my head.

After pulling on my boots I gazed out once more over the morning feeling an uneasy calm settling into my chest heavy enough to cry and I might for no reason. Then like it does sometimes for no apparent reason follows by a flash of eager anticipation-a glimpse of something bigger out there flooded me, filling me with the anxious adrenalin of fear and excitement at the same time.

And with that moment and without another thought I sprang up like on a string, patted ‘Pup’ on the head and took a giant enthusiastic leap off the porch and landed my heals with a hard thud on dirt and limestone that shook my spine and the cobwebs loose. While stretching my arms I was startled by a soft familiar motherly voice muffled through the kitchen screen. It was Mrs. Carson telling me to take care of myself and stay out of trouble. Not a breath of disappointment or judgment in her voice, which somehow made it all the worse. Shame for all my life poured over me at that moment with the love that woman felt for me and  who asked for nothing ever in return. Loved me like a son. Loved me no less than any one of her elleven kids, grand kids, great grand kids. I was at the top of the list. It was no secret I was one of her favorites and I know if nothing else, she will forever say a prayer for me.

Mrs. Dorothy Carson

“Yes ma’am” I say humbly bowing down my head, knowing she could see me through the sink window.
 “Thanks Mrs. Carson for everything, tell everybody I said goodbye”.
 I had felt someone had been watching me and I wondered if she had known when we had come in during the night but then again she knows just about everything. Her life moves in a pace of mountains growing with the unwavering faith of her Lord watching over her. And I know she could almost tell me the future if I asked her but I am just as afraid of knowing it as not.

 I went over and opened the creaking door on the dew covered Rambler wiping my hand across the wet windshield then dipped and plopped down on the cold vinyl seat. I lit a stale cigarette blowing the smoke against the foggy glass, sat and paused the world for one whole eternal moment before shattering mother natures peaceful dawn silence with a spinning fly wheel starter and coughing rumble of a cranky old six cylinder with a bad exhaust that sent a plume of wet smoke up into the universe.

The air all around reeked of methane gas and crude oil. Drifted in across flatlands all the way from Midland Odessa or up from Lockhart and Lagrange. It’s a smell hard to get used to for most but grows on you nonetheless. Familiar as mothballs and old wool blankets. Strangers to it just say ‘what the hell stinks around here?’ I figured it would air out somewhere between here and the border of Mexico and wouldn’t pay it any mind if it didn’t.

When I shifted into gear I felt the early morning loneliness of departure hanging onto me like a bad dream, my familiar sadness trailing close behind me. It’s the way it feels when there seems to be nothing around but one big 'son of a bitch' of a universe and you’re all that’s in it. It’s like missing your mama a thousand miles from home. Not quite sure what there is to be afraid of but it’s big, you’re awfully small and so alone that God’s not even out there and the big sky is gonna open up any minute and swallow you up and my passenger seat for this journey never felt more empty.

I crawled down the long dirt drive, crunching gravel under the tires and then with a wave and glance in my mirror, turned slow and long onto hard pavement of the old farm and market road. The only signs of life I saw on the main road were a couple of old sharecroppers puling an empty hay trailer behind a spitting old John Deere. They were so out of place and old like a Bible..It's amazing there is still share cropping around here in this day and age. From here all the way east to River Road Louisiana, whole families still sewing the land with hands deep in the soil. I could just make out the cloudy yellow cataracts of their shiny eyes that were as piercing as the wrathful eyes of Jesus back there on the ceiling. Soulful and strong they were like Indian Chiefs. These Old Timers looked as if they still had a bit of slave souls somewhere in their hearts.  Their leather skin was pure black, old and weather hardened into blue like a blacksmiths coal. Salt of the earth disciples.

“Those are angel spies. Don’t you know them are angel spies for the lord?”, I could almost hear Mrs. Carson saying things like that, teasing the kids and putting a little needed fear of God into them. Definitely made you think twice. I still think about it. Southern things just stick to you like that.

The house faded in the distance. I turned toward old San Antonio back roads towards Buda and soon dipped across a low water bridge over a mud creek where I could still hear our voices as kids mucking about like it was yesterday….

50th Birthday 2011