Chapter 1
A Sense Not Understood
What possible inner homing device can cause a person to be drawn to a former residence that predates one’s ability to compile and catalog data? Why do geese, or wild turkeys, or monarch butterflies for that matter have the capability of traveling thousands of miles to former reproductive grounds? Perhaps humans have some of those same innate capacities but do not engage the evolution required to set them free....
If you are reading this you must be a relative. Or, you have broken into our home and found your way to my study. Why you might pick up this manuscript and begin reading is beyond the best efforts of my imagination. I have rendered this tale to paper only to satisfy my own needs. Perhaps to take stock of my life in some way. Or, possibly, so my children, and perhaps theirs, could have some sense of the journey traveled by their ancestors. Anyway, whatever compels people to write a bit of their family history now compels me. I can hold it back no longer.
My earliest recollection is of being on my dad’s shoulders in the yard behind the back of the house. It is a white house, squarish, with a dark gray wood shingle roof. There are no rain gutters. At the back there is a garage with a basketball hoop on a pole nearby. I can visualize myself up near the hoop but unable to grasp or touch it. Perhaps I am on my father’s shoulders. The season is either early spring or late fall; it is cold and I am wearing a fleece-like powder blue jacket and a matching cap with flaps. I think it is fun to be up in the air! The gentle breeze slips in between the flaps and my ears. I think they are hot, like a match just struck. The year is 1942, and I am two years old give or take a few months.
A Sense Not Understood
What possible inner homing device can cause a person to be drawn to a former residence that predates one’s ability to compile and catalog data? Why do geese, or wild turkeys, or monarch butterflies for that matter have the capability of traveling thousands of miles to former reproductive grounds? Perhaps humans have some of those same innate capacities but do not engage the evolution required to set them free....
If you are reading this you must be a relative. Or, you have broken into our home and found your way to my study. Why you might pick up this manuscript and begin reading is beyond the best efforts of my imagination. I have rendered this tale to paper only to satisfy my own needs. Perhaps to take stock of my life in some way. Or, possibly, so my children, and perhaps theirs, could have some sense of the journey traveled by their ancestors. Anyway, whatever compels people to write a bit of their family history now compels me. I can hold it back no longer.
My earliest recollection is of being on my dad’s shoulders in the yard behind the back of the house. It is a white house, squarish, with a dark gray wood shingle roof. There are no rain gutters. At the back there is a garage with a basketball hoop on a pole nearby. I can visualize myself up near the hoop but unable to grasp or touch it. Perhaps I am on my father’s shoulders. The season is either early spring or late fall; it is cold and I am wearing a fleece-like powder blue jacket and a matching cap with flaps. I think it is fun to be up in the air! The gentle breeze slips in between the flaps and my ears. I think they are hot, like a match just struck. The year is 1942, and I am two years old give or take a few months.
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