HOME SWEET HOME

I happened to be sitting at my keyboard a few minutes ago, (as I obviously am now) and looked over to my right. There on a large, ‘stand-up’ china cabinet was a framed picture of which I am very fond, a photograph of ‘the old home place’ in which I spent my adolescent years; prior to marrying and assuming the life of a young adult.

And it occurred to me.

"That picture deserves a more prominent place than where it currently resides."

And with this I rose from my typing chair, grabbed the framed photo and hung it on a conveniently located nail; immediately over my computer monitor. And as I gaze as the representation of my old home place now, it looks like it belongs on this very wall.

And it occurs to me, as I finished typing the previous sentence, that my dearly departed father and mother once sat at a table directly under this same wall where now hangs that reminder of what was, and will never be again. Twenty years before my dad passed away, (and twenty-five for my mom) my wife and I hosted a retirement party for the two of them in this room. Speaking of photos, I have a picture of their smiling faces, as they survey a lovely vanilla retirement cake; covered with a bunch of creamy red roses.

My dad and mom had bought an acre and a quarter a couple of miles east of the little town of Bartow which boasted all of 15,000 souls; (and has grown very little in the past half century). My father owned an exterminating business, and at the same time he was having a house built on the property, he contracted with the builder to install a warehouse for his equipment and chemicals.

In his spare time my dad loved to plant and tend flowers and trees. Daddy once loaded my next older brother and me into his truck and we headed off to a nearby piece of wooded property, unloaded a couple of shovels and an axe and we set to work. To this day I’m unsure whether he’d gotten permission from the land owner, but my dad instructed Wayne and I to begin digging around a six foot oak tree. And after much adieu, we managed to unearth the behemoth, wrestled it into the bed of the truck, retraced our pathway home, dug a similar hole as that which we’d left behind, and replanted the tree.

Talking about my dad’s resplendent yard, he filled up the front half acre, which bordered a major four lane highway, with a myriad of shrubs and flowers, And as long as we lived at this location he extended love and care to not only the flora, but the fauna as well. For you see daddy dug a 4x8 foot pond close to the house and populated it with goldfish and water lilies. He erected a couple of squirrel feeders and set up a sugar water dispenser; which proved quite popular with bubble bees and hummingbirds.

For several years running my parents would host an annual Easter Egg Hunt for their grandchildren. There were any number of places to hide the eggs in and about the trees and scrubs of my father’s manicured yard. I have one photo taken during one such occasion. Eight or ten of my dad’s and mom’s grandchildren can be seen sitting in the back of daddy’s work truck and smiling broadly at the camera.

One winter’s morning we awoke to the smell of smoke, and walking into the living room the most despicable of sights greeted our eyes. A couple of nearby orange grove owners had ‘fired’ their groves the previous night, in order to reduce the impact of sub-freezing weather on the crop. Our living room was a disaster. Smoke had infiltrated the doors and windows and our walls were black with smoot, as was all of our cloth furniture. Ultimately, my parents were awarded a cash settlement from the grove owners.

The spa adjoining my parent’s bedroom was a popular meeting place for young and old, alike. My father was an artist, and he painted a nature mural on the wall behind the spa. No doubt, it was the largest landscape my dad every painted. My uncles, aunts, cousins and friends spent many an hour in the comfort of that indoor ‘cement pond.’

During junior high school I worked for a plant nursery in the afternoons after school. And without fail, at the ending of the afternoon I would come home covered up in muck. Mama forced me to strip down to my underwear after I stepped through the door to the back porch, and before entering the adjoining dining room.

There was the time my dad brought home the largest bass I’d ever seen and which he’d caught in a lake behind our house. When I caught sight of him and his trophy fish, I ran through our sliding glass door; (without first having the benefit of opening it).

It was the age of the Beach Boys. I’ll always remember holding my old transistor radio up to my ear while skateboarding to a nearby bowling alley. And how can I forget the day that daddy slipped off a ladder while trimming trees, and came crashing to the ground below. Thankfully, he was none the worse for wear. Rather prophetic, as decades later a similar fate befell me; (though not without significant harm to my body). My little squirrel monkey which I’d purchased one day and him managing to escape from his cage just days later. The ‘hut’ which a friend and I built out of scrap lumber and to which we sojourned when school let out; and wiled away many a sunlit afternoon. Camping out on the Peace River. Riding horseback with a neighbor girl. Running behind the mosquito spray truck, as it emitted copious amounts of toxic, white fog. Dropping by the neighborhood ‘Mom & Pop store.’ Grabbing a small, green bottle of ‘Coke’ out of the cooler, and guzzling it down in a few swigs. Methodist Youth Camp in Leesburg. Church on Sunday. How blessed I am for my mother’s diligent efforts to expose me to spiritual things.

Sundry and miscellaneous memories from a time gone by which can never be repeated, nor summoned back, except by way of that miraculous faculty of memory.

Vivid recollections by day. Dreamy reflections by night.

They say you can never go back.

(But…I think I just did).


by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "McDonald's Daily Diary." Vol. 45. Copyright pending.

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