Category: Childhood
-
An echo of my young self?
[A ‘new’ vintage postcard of our apartment building. Out apartment is shown by the black arrow. Source: Public Domain.] Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you. ~~F. Scott Fitzgerald I slid out of our four-poster and onto the creaky wooden floor. It’s the…
-
Thanksgiving Thoughts on a cloudy afternoon
[If you know me, you know this house. 420 Front St. Owego, NY. Photo is mine.] I can see a better time when all our dreams come true. ~~Fairytale of New York. Shane Patrick Lysaght Macgowan Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our…
-
the four green fields blog14: the goddesses of the moon
[Unenhanced photo of the moon. Sailing west, looking south. The North Atlantic Ocean. Photo is mine.] Whenever people look at clouds they do not see their real shape, which is no shape at all, or every shape, because they are constantly changing. They see whatever it is that their heart yearns for. ~~Eduardo Agualusa, A…
-
the woman who birthed me
[My mother, Mary Hotchko Egan. She is striking a very ’50s pose in our backyard in Owego, NY. Photo is mine.] “Don’t toss that saucer in the air. You’ll drop it.” ~~My mother to me, sometime in the late ’60s. Of course I wouldn’t listen. I tossed it up and caught it, until I missed.…
-
Peter, Lenny & pat’s big adventure
[The route. The dark blue line. Disregard the time notation. Source: Google Maps.] “I remember it was up hill all the way.” ~~ Lenny Schmidt “There is a cow outside of our tent.” ~~ Patrick Egan Oh, the exuberance of youth! The innocence of the young! The pure and wild wind in our hair and…
-
To keep you from being homesick
[The found photograph. By unknown photographer, probably my father.] The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect, and as for that object, it depends upon chance whether we come upon it…
-
Coal For Christmas
[Another year. Another Christmas. I republish this every holiday season with a tweak here and there. This story is true and I am passing it down to new readers and my two children and my grandson. Every story from our own lives or the lives of those we once loved…every story is worth telling. There…
-
Ooh, Paddy: A Boy Sits In The Grass Near His Grandfather
[My grandfather, George Hotchko. Photo is from the early 1970’s. Credit: Daniel Egan.] Oh, I dunno, Paddy. Sometimes those stories keep me up at night. They make me uncomfortable. ~~Spoken to me by my grandfather, George Hotchko. When I was a little boy. 1950’s. Part 1-Meeting my grandfather… Yes, the title. Of course I’m the…
patrickjegan 