Outbreaks of unvarnished truths in the backyard of our true self can be very precious and inspiring, even though we might inconsistently be tempted to give in to the exhilarating perfume of fables and fair tales or to flattering praise and fiction.

~~Erik Pevernagie

I’m in a cemetery standing under a silver maple tree. It’s early May and the leaves haven’t fully unfolded yet. Behind me are the graves of my family. There’s my mother, Mary, the first of my family to pass away. My father, Paul, rests beside her. My brother Dennis and my sister-in-law, Carmelita. She is still living. There’s Adrienne, my niece. She died too young–an amazing life unlived. There’s another brother, Daniel. His stone, a military plaque, is off to one side. His ashes share the plot.

These are a few of the people who shaped me, taught me, scolded, disagreed and yelled at me. But they all loved me. And I them. In this company I am forced to think of my life, especially my youth. I walk back to the car, snapping the rubber band that held the flowers that I and my wife, Mariam just put against the stone.

It’s a red granite. When my mother’s funeral was over, my oldest brother, Chris and I picked out the stone. It held the lettering nicely but the lichens would eventually cover it, obliterating the names and dates.

I wonder who will scrape the algae when I’m gone?

But, here I am, living in the town where I grew up. Owego is a different town in the 21st century than it was when I wandered the streets and watched the mist rise from the Susquehanna. The same steps at the Post Office are still chipped and the same statues watch over the town like they did in the 19th century. Some things should never change.

Today, more coffee shops exist. Two book stores.

The town has changed, as I have.

I’m living in an apartment three floors above the room where I went to kindergarten. I’ve come back to re-set, re-new and get more space for my dollar. I’m finding old friends and enjoying my social life.

[A pruned shrub with new growth. Sort of a metaphor for me. Photo is mine.]

I’m walking down Front Street, looking at the grand restored homes, seeing them almost for the first time. I notice something new each time I walk past the lawns and flowering trees. I stop at the corner of John Street and look over at 420 Front, my home, off and on, for sixty years. We sold the house in 2006 and for four or five years after that, I couldn’t visit Owego or even think about the house. That’s how powerful and impactful my experiences were. It’s hard to put into words how important the place was to me. Some people can pass over a key and walk away. I put the key into a woman’s hand and never stopped looking back.

It’s my curse. The part of my brain (the one that is still functioning, somewhat) that stores memory. For me, there is no erase button.

So, I find one of the new cafés, sip a dark roast, and slide into the pool of waiting memories…

On warm summer nights our back porch became a meeting place. My friends would arrive with a sleeping bag. We provided the army surplus cots. Then the sleep-over would begin. These days it would likely qualify as a “Play Date”. I doubt that my friends, in 1956, would relish the idea of saying to a family member or friend: “Oh, I going over to Pat’s house for a play date”. Just sayin’

We’d tell stories and talk about girls. At ten or eleven, we viewed girls as mysterious creatures made of fine China. We weren’t exactly afraid of them, but, maybe just a little.

Funny how some things never change.

Sleeping, actually falling asleep on the cots, in our bags, was clearly out of the question. It was night. There was a backyard on our property that ran all the way to the river. Some of us considered the lawn almost mythical, like The Shire or that place where the hobbits live. It was full of mystery.

We were boys of action, so we didn’t just talk about the backyard, we accepted the challenge and went forth.

Two experiences stand out in my memory. One was the sound of the Nightwalkers (more often referred to as Nightcrawlers). My older brother, Chris, would lead the four or five of us past our garage, through a hedge and around the giant fir trees. He’d tell us to stay quiet and listen, and then he would stomp his foot. In the quiet we would hear a sound that is hard to describe. Kind of a muted swoosh. It only lasted a few seconds. “Neat” we’d say. It was the sound of all the giant earthworms crawling hurriedly into their holes. They weren’t out every night, just the evenings following a hot day. This was their way of getting cool.

That’s the explanation I was told. Sounds logical to me.

Sadly, I don’t think it’s something anyone can experience today. Where are the large, fat, scary Nightwalkers? Where is the quiet necessary to hear such a ephemeral sound? It’s a different world.

But the real treat was presented to us at the very edge of the river. So we’d walk to the top of the bank and pick our way down to the shore. Chris would forbid us from using flashlights because he didn’t want to spoil his night vision.

He would already have a stout stick. He also pulled from his pocket of wonders, a Zippo or Ronson lighter.

We would huddle beside him, on our knees in the wet silt, and watch as he would plunge the stick into the water about a foot from the shore. He’d twirl and stir like a witch standing at her pot of potions. Bubbles came to the surface. Chris would flick the lighter and…blue flames danced over the water’s surface.

“Swamp gas,” he’d say. “Methane”.

Sitting in the silence, and the dark, with a warm breeze moving upriver, it was a magical scene.

I don’t know what my friends took away from such an evening’s adventure, but for me, I still make every effort to retain that sense of wonder at the small things that make the natural world so interesting, and also to a small degree, scary.

I wonder if I ever thanked Chris for all he taught me about what one can experience in the dark.

[The blue flame of burning methane. Source: Google search.]

Back at the back porch, we would stretch out in our dacron bags and talk about what we had just seen and heard. On more that one occasion we would hear the screech of brakes as yet another car failed to make the turn at the infamous “Broken Arm Curve” that was part of Front Street. Back then, there were no lights, no yellow caution flashers. Much of them were fender bender accidents, but other times, the crash was more serious.

But even explorers like us, those willing to brave a walk in the dark to the river’s edge with a flashlight, get tired.

And that’s when we would drift off to sleep to the sound of crickets over the train tracks, in the Brick Pond.

Personally, there’s no sweeter music than that.