Summer of 1986

In the summer of 1986 I left the ample hills end endless woods of Southeastern Kentucky in an old Ford wrecker. I made most of the eight our drive in silence. My aunts brother-in-law, a gentle giant named Glenn, was giving me a ride to Elkhart. I was fourteen years old and I had been living with my Grandparents. The generation gap was prooving too difficult for all involved so I was heading back to the home of my mother.

The water pump began to fail around Stanford Kentucky and we had to turn back. Though we had gotten an early start the delay burned a lot of daylight and it was nearly dark when we arrived. Mother lived in an apartment on Pleasant Plains Ave called Williamsburg On the Lake. I wasn't used to apartment life and had a rough time adjusting. I was accustomed to working in the garden, feeding horses, staying gone all day roaming the woods. I remember a small grove of trees accross Mishawaka road I used to look at longingly. It wasn't the happiest summer of my life but It could have been worse. In the fall school started and I liked the situation even less. I opened my mouth ane people seemed to drop my IQ by 20 points. I was called hillbilly and redneck... all sorts of things. I even had a teacher who had a poster on his wall depicting a "hillbilly" struggling to answer simple questions. I still dislike that man.

Winter was fun for me. It didn't snow like that back home. I can remember nights when that heavy lake effect snow silenced the world.... The only audible sound was the snow flakes themselfs as they fell to earth. I enjoyed that very much.

Deeper into the winter.. The snow seemed to change. The winds picked up, the temperature dropped and the snow flakes hurt when they hit my face.

One night my mother dropped my brother and I off at the movies... She came in with us and purchased a ticket for herself in order to get us into the rated R movie. She left and told us she'd be back to pick us up. After the movie we stood outside in the wind and cold. The snow was blowing sideways through the lights in the mall parking lot. Mom never came. We waited... everyone had gone but she never came. A man with long hair and a neat beard wearing a suit came outside and told us to come in out of the cold and wait inside. He was the manager. He offered us a soda then disappeared somewhere inside the movie house. We waited inside for a bit then decided to make the long walk home. Mom was asleep on the couch when we got there... we had to beat on the door to wake her. She had been working extra and sIeeping less but was furious... more cold than furious but furious none the less. The next morning...on the news the man with the long hair and the suit was being arrested for killing the owner the night before. It was so strange... he had been so polite and kind the night before.