TERRY MOSHER
It was the summer of my youth, the last one before the world caved in and changed things forever. A pre-teen, I was serving the last vestiges of a life that was full of peace and exciting little adventures that only a 12-year-old could enjoy before a death and a gush of testosterone turned his world upside down.
How exciting I found it that I could stop by a trickle of a stream just 20 feet west of the railroad tracks and squatting find little tadpoles and lizards sharing a small pool of water in a peaceful slice of life unseen by others who walked by unaware of the life they were missing.
Then headed out over to the tracks and began walking the rails, pretending to be a Wallenda on a high wire with no safety net. I’m feeling the hot iron of the rail on my bare feet as I teeter, but never fall.
Tiring of that and then jumping off the rail onto the ties. Leaping from one to the other in a mindless exercise that took concentration less I miss, and counting them as I went not to exercise my mind but just because I could.
A hungry hawk circled above my head in the cloudless sky, and I wondered what it was looking for, what poor creature was in its target. Hopefully, it wasn’t going to be me
Abandoned rail cars stood alongside a side rail track. The cars had been here since God only knows when. Two of the cars still had parts of a load of coal in them, the others were empty, making them available for pre-teens like me to walk among them, and on top of them.
When the neighborhood gang was all together, we roamed among the cars and played tag, but today I was on my own and in the quietness and stillness of a mid-summer day I inspected each car once again only to find nothing out of place.
On this day I didn’t feel like going over the hill loaded with oak trees to the summit and then scramble down the other side to the rocks big as houses where us neighbor boys played all through the summers of our youth.
No, this day I wandered up the cow path at Scutt’s Farm, where I worked most days, earning a buck to much the stalls or to feed the cows and scatter hay among the stalls.
I loved the smell of the farm, especially the feed bins. I stopped and grabbed some of the feed and raised it to my nose and inhaled. Nothing could compare to that sensation.
Entering the milk house, I expected to see Lee, the elder Scutt, who stood guard and took payment for customers who came by to get a quart or two of milk. On this day he was not around and I wandered to the freezer where ice cream and fudge bars were stored. The fudge bars were too tempting and I grabbed one and moved on out of the milk house to consume it across the road on the dike that held back the spring waters of the Allegheny, but now just lapped gently at the bottom of the dike
Strolling along the dike, high above Route 17, I felt like a king surveying his domain. I crossed onto the Steam Valley Bridge and halfway across the shaky bridge I stopped, lay down and watched as below in shallow and clear water rock bass, suckers and the occasional carp would swim by.
Small stones I threw at the fish didn’t seem to bother them. By now they expected such shenanigans from me.
Tiring of that, I meandered back home just a couple hundred yards away where I was greeted by Peanuts, our beloved dog who was a bit upset that I had left her behind when I left the house hours before. But now we were together again and she leaped up to greet me, putting her front paws on my chest and inviting me to pet her and to let her know that everything was okay.
I went upstairs to my bedroom and, of course, Peanuts followed and jumped on the bed with me. As we lay there together, we both looked out the window at the setting sun on another summer day of my youth.
Those fleeting summer days would turn into autumn, winter and then come down hard on a late spring day when my world stopped just short of my 13th birthday.
Mom died.
A course that had been set for me was destroyed and a new one built. It didn’t include tadpoles, lizards, railroad rails and ties, soaring eagles and train cars waiting for the neighbor boys to come and play.
The world became different, and the peace, quietness and stillness of the summer of my youth faded away and became a dream never again fulfilled.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.