When you were young did you ever run away from home? I had two older brothers that caused me to think real seriously about where I would go and what I would do if I were to ever leave my home and parents. Usually I would just go over to a friend’s house and ask if I could sleep on their couch. This didn’t last but about two days when the host would look at me a different way and I knew that was my signal that I wasn’t as welcome as I thought I was.
So, I would walk back home and walk in like nothing had happened. My mom would look at me to see if I was missing a tooth or anything and then go on with her day. In truth I think that I was a real pain to her but she just wouldn’t let me know that I wasn’t being the best son she could have. My pop would just tell her I was growing up and that I would come home when I got hungry. There weren’t too many things that would cause my Pop to get excited.
I’m writing about running away because I still do it. The difference is that now I have a partner when I run away, my wonderful wife, Lorraine. When we were just starting to realize how much we meant to each other, sometimes we scared ourselves with how serious our relationship had become. Both of us were discovering what true love was and what it meant to be in love. Oh, we would act as though this was the end and until she or I discovered what was going on we would just stay away from each other.
As time went on we realized that what we had was truly something special. Of course I was actually frightened by the emotion I was feeling. I was suffering from what the medical crowd named PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was a new discovery for me and it was a few years before I could identify the symptoms and prepare myself for the explosion of an emotion that accompanied my days.
I didn’t want to pull her into my dark world so I would run away leaving her to wonder if she had done something to trigger my symptoms. Of course she had done nothing. It was just my running away from what I could not understand. Our love teetered and grew through some dark days. Lorraine took things until she discovered a secret about our time together. She found that I would perk up and smile if she were to mention running away for the weekend.
It couldn’t be a little thing to run away. It had to be planned and no one else could know unless it was one of our children. I found that being by ourselves allowed each of us a chance to express anything that we may have been thinking about. I found that if I were to be thinking about anything I hadn’t told her or something I wanted to say when I knew I needed her input it was all allowed when we ran away. Our children always knew of our sojourns and they felt that it was good for both of us.
This past week seemed like a good time to run away. Our younger son and his loved one had given us a gift of a night at a hotel in Pismo Beach and the weather was forecast to be wonderful in that part of California. So we ran away, in the middle of the week for a couple of days. The weather was indeed wonderful and the hotel was first rate.
I had told Lorraine that I had lived in Grover City way back when and I went to school in Pismo Beach. So it was a great trip through memories and stories of how my brothers and I existed back in those days. We used to put pennies on the railroad that ran right near our house and the engineer would slow down and flatten them out.
My older brothers and I used to get up and paddle across this swamp that was right beside the road, up over the sand dunes and then dig for clams early in the morning before the game warden came by. We would take them home and mom would make us clam chowder. I think I was in the third grade about that time. It was a great place to live. I drove around and pointed out where our house was. It’s gone now but the new houses are shaped just like the old ones. We could see where we would put my younger brother in a stroller and push him down the driveway. He would laugh like crazy unless his stroller hit a rock and threw him out. He would cry then, but not very much.
To make the end of the week complete, we came home just in time to attend a birthday party given for Butch Lindley by his wife Vivian. Butch is someone who has worked hard and cares deeply for our beautiful valley and is a proud Vietnam Veteran. To give you an idea of how cool Butch is, he asked that in lieu of gifts a donation be given to the Veterans Transition Center on the old Fort Ord. I know of that organization and can state that the gifts will be used to help our veterans. Just because a veteran returns to the home he or she left does not mean that the war is over for them.
Being a Veteran, Butch knows this and a more heartfelt gift would be hard to find. Of course Butch knows simply everyone and I think everyone was there. The party started when a Special Forces Soldier by the name of Guido parachuted from an unseen airplane overhead with Our Nation’s flags fluttering. The master of ceremonies brought mist to the eyes of all present by leading the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance to our Country’s Flag and singing of our National Anthem. By this you might get an idea of who Butch is. You would be correct. He is THAT KIND of guy. He loves his country and his neighbors. I don’t usually drift away from a conversation between you and me but I hope he knows that his neighbors love him.
God Bless.
