TERRY MOSHER
I really listened intently to Joan Baez’s Green, Green Grass of Home just now and it nearly brought me to tears. I have heard this song many times, but you know how it is that most of the time your thoughts are elsewhere and the music becomes just background noise. But this time, for some reason, I really, really listened to the words.
The reason it nearly produced tears is that I had a great childhood for the first 12 years of my life (it went downhill rather quickly from there) and I still think about living in Portville, N.Y. almost every day. I had a solid family foundation and things could not be better. They were so good that sometimes I dream of what would have been if that life had maintained the pace I was on. I’ll never know, of course. But Baez’s song lifted me back to that time.
“The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train,
And there meet me is my Mama and my Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.”
If only I could step back like that and have my Mama and Papa greet me. Mama died May 21, 1953 at the age of 48 to start my downhill slide. Anyone who has lost a mother at an early age knows that it stays with you for the rest of your life as far as the ifs and what could have been.
Spiritually, people will tell you that it happened that way because it was meant to, as if that makes it all right and heals the pain in your heart and fills the void that her death left.
I find that reasoning hard to believe, and wish she was still with me now even though she would now be 110 years old.
Dad died Jan. 9, 1980 when he was 74 so I had plenty of time with him and can’t cry that he left me. He was a giant of a man who was as naturally strong as anybody I have seen. He didn’t know his own strength and was as gentle a person as he was physically strong. I miss him as much as I miss my mama, but at least with him I had more time and the hole it left when he died was, and is, not as big.
“The old house is still standing tho’ the paint is cracked and dry,
And there’s that old oak tree that I used to play on.
Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries.”
Our old house is still standing in Portville. Actually, two of them are still there, side-by-side. Dad built the second one where his garden used to be (he always had to have a garden) We moved into the second one before my mother died and when she died we moved back into the other home and my sister, who was the oldest in the family and already married, moved in with her family to replace, I guess, mother.
We still have all the trees – apple and pear and hickory nut and maple around the two houses. All of them are now gone, and I can’t say I played in the trees but they were a comfort to me because stood there year after year.
As for Mary, I didn’t meet her until years later. I was in the fifth grade when telepathy I was told I would marry Mary. Who tells a nine-year old who they will marry? Whoever is up there looking after me I can tell you now they are right. Mary and I have been married for almost 50 years.
“It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.”
Yes, it is good to touch the green, green grass of home. I have been back to my old hometown many times and I never fail to walk around the old homestead and think what could have been.
In 1955 I was back for the first time after moving the year before to Ferndale, WA., and Peanuts, my dog companion through my childhood was nestled up on the porch of the old home (my sister and her family were still living there) and as I crossed the street I softly called to her. When she heard me, she woke up, turned around and raced off the porch into my arms. Amazing story, but it was so true. It was one of the most touching scenes in my life. We were together again and I wish she could still be in my arms. Tears are about to drop again.
Baez goes on to sing about it all being a dream, but realizes that some day she will be home again and reunited with her Mama and Papa, resting beneath the green, green grass of home.
I’m anxious to get “home” and see my Mama, especially my Mama. I have a lot of questions to ask her and to be able to hold on to her. That will be a great day for me.
For now, though, I’ll keep going and keep on writing.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.