Good Times

Yips and howls from the coyote’s late night hunting parties made my dreams terrifying. I don’t know why I was afraid of the animals; it’s not like they showed anything more than curiosity toward us, and they visited on only a few occasions, but for some reason the four legged mangy creatures were my biggest fear—well them and spiders.

Fortunately, our day time routines were coyote free. My brother and I would spend most of the morning with our mom. She quit her paper pushing job to home school us when we moved to our seventeen-acre Christmas tree farm. Most of the lessons she taught I’ve long since forgotten, except for one—drawing from sight.

My best creation was a horse. Mom showed me a picture and instructed me to focus on it while I moved the pencil in my hand along a piece of paper. I’ve never been able to draw—I’m creative, but not in that way—so when my rendering looked close to the original I was elated. Over the course of an hour I must have drawn ten or twelve different things, but none as majestic as the horse.

After lessons Mom would send my brother and I outside. Two brave explorers in the unknown, willing to risk it all to catch mudpuppies by the pond, climb trees, investigate the old barn and out buildings which still stood on the property . . . whatever we could get into, we did.

Kris and I grew closer than we had ever been in our time spent together on the farm. I’ll even risk saying we were best friends and when I was with him, most of my fears disappeared.