A Photograph of Memories

The best of the best of the best of me 

comes from growing up in a coal mining
camp, in the old house still standing today. 

It looked quite different in the fifties . . . 

and felt twice as big, with a bannister 

that wound all the way around the front and 

side right, to the very back of the house 

where then was to be found a big back porch. 

There was a chert driveway to the left where 

I fell while showing off my new bike to 

parents in the car in the driveway, their

having just returned from down the hill at

Woodward Iron Company Commissary.

Parents found out the hard way, what they knew

not, theretofore, their eight-year-old lad had 

finally found the pedals. The fall left 

a one-inch scar on my left knee that’s yet

there, where I put it, sixty years ago. 

Three windows now in the attic were not 

there then, nor was the privet surrounding

the front porch. The large tree to the right I

did climb often . . . whenever I was not 

flinging a ball against the center steps.

A picture, I took recently, when I 

found myself back in Mulga and, by chance, 

met up with old friends from so long ago.