2000-03-11 - 00:05:43 MST

To continue from yesterday- - - - - Stage set, warm sunny day, everything growing and showing at its very best, butterfles flittering about, birds in transit from here to there, flowers in bloom. - - - - - I'm ten years old, still in dotty love with everything I feel and see. There is spring in my step, my energy tank is full to overflowing, my hearing and my sight are at that age, tip top.

I have been taken to my friend's house in a more or less country setting - out on the fringes - cows and horses and produce growing. His house is frame, white, with an inviting porch and porch swing at one end and a hammock slung from one support to the other at the other end of the porch.

I went in to make my duty call to his mother and older sister then Bob and I were told when to return for lunch. Then we were free, free, free. We adventured across the road to see the horses in the pasture and marvel how huge they were. This is where I got my first whiff of animal smell - different than anything I had ever inhaled. It was good, exciting and great until one of the horses voided, that put a little thorn in it.

Bob took me to another farm to see the pigs there. We went up to the sty, my curiosity overcoming my urge to hurl..........we stood and watched as the pigs were slopped and watched them eat a while.

Soon Bob said, "Come on pal, and we wandered around like puppies and we we did as they did except to smell the trees and lift our legs. But we were vagrants with nowhere in particular to go, but just live and enjoy. At one of the places we sighted a large tree, one of the nice kind like we had in town only a lot bigger. It was of the maple family I believe, we managed to get up in the limbs and climbed as high as we could to see how far we could see. Oh, lordy, how good that tree felt and smelt. Vacillating breezes wafted through enough to make it pleasant to be up there. Then we went lower on the tree and played our version of Tarzan, doing things which were within our capability to do. Occasionally just finding a limb which took our fancy and got comfortable and loafed with nothing really occupying our minds.

Nowadays, at times I occupy that tree in memories and dreams and look back on the beauty and serenity of those times and the glorious recreation we had then.

Soon Bob checked the sun and said, "Lets go, Ma'll have lunch ready." Away we went to his house and found that his mental clock was right on. His mother told us to set the table and as we did that, she was putting the hot food on. She was farm raised and put out a great meal in sufficient quantity to make foundering possible. In fact quite possible because it was delicious and Bob and I had managed to do enough to work up a colossal appetite. At last we were full and logy.

And trundled ourselves out to the porch and periodically swapped places in the hammock and porch swing (glider I think they called it). It wasn't hung by chains, but was self contained and had comfortable cushions on it.

He brought out some books and magazines for us to read, but anon as the heat rose a bit and our stomachs required the energy to digest we both drifted off to sleep. It was a short nap and I had to answer a call of nature. Bob gave me the directions to their outhouse. I wandered around to the side of the house and toward the back, looking at everything as I went, noticing the differenet colors and textures and smells as I hurried by. The backyard was butterfly and bee heaven. There was a beautiful grape arbor covered with pretty, green, textured leaves. The hum of the bees was background music for the bird calls. I think they all were having some kind of gathering or other.

Periodically a magpie would fly by and off a ways there was a meadow lark singing his beautiful trill, it was short, sweetly melodious and repeated after a minute or so.

The scene out there was prettier than any picture I had ever seen.

Then I got to the privy and entered, closed the door and for a short time paged through the old, "Monkey

Wart" catalogue to pick out what I wanted to wish for next. I listened to the flies below the seat and worried a bit about bees and spiders, a thrill chasing up and down my spine when the sound would vary. The smell, wow, Not like the city where we had flush commodes, the smell was heavy. Mixed in with that smell of sun warmed pine wood that the privy was made of and growing things mixed with the perfume of his mom's flowers out there, there was even a rose trellis at the side and although the roses were small there was a fragrancefrom there too. It was an amalgamation of smells, sights and sounds along with the texture of things I felt as I passed put me into a land of enchantment with my imagination creating fabulous things not of this earth.

Back on the porch we played a few games of checkers while we drank some lemonade his mom brought out. Later Bob's mom brought out some of her home baked cookies and milk for us.

It all became as a dream, I could think of nothing more perfect than the day I was living then.

It wore on into the afternoon, the shadows were growing longer, by the minute it seemed. Bob and I played a frantic, scrambling game of tag hoping to defer the passing of time.

Soon though our neighbor who had dropped me off came by and picked me up and we headed back toward Denver. I kept my friend and his home site in view as long as I could and finally came back to the real world.

I am glad I had that time with Bob, in that short day a lot of learning had seeped into my soul.

The visit was never to be repeated, and Bob never got to spend the night at my house as we planned. Dad, who knew the family told me a short time after that that Bob and his family had to move back to the family farm Illinois or somewhere. Bob's dad had a job in Denver but his family farmed out there, Bob's dad was laid off and couldn't find work.

in the depressed times that we existed, it was tough. But I do still have that glorious day stowed deep in my mental treasure chest never to be surrendered on any account.

Time goes on and so do we, some times one is faster than the other and sometimes we feel that time is stretching on into infinity. Even so time and ourselves end up in a tie for a moment, and then as we rest, time goes on for our young and their young but time has stopped for us.

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