Yesteryears (standard:non fiction, 993 words)
Author: Sarah	Added: Apr 02 2001	Views/Reads: 4132/2112	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Serendipity. Life is full of it. If you know to look for it.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

best smell in the world. 

As far as the barn roof house is concerned, maybe it was something else
that drew her attention; that beckoned her.  An aura perhaps, a 
presence, of the laughter, the tears, the sorrows, the joys of the 
people who had lived there 25 years earlier. 

Whatever it was remained a mystery.  She never knew the people who lived
there during her childhood well enough to be invited inside.  And never 
had the chance to heed the beck and call of the house by venturing 
inside.  Years later, when she learned it had been her father's 
childhood home, she remembered the emotions the house had stirred in 
her.  And wondered.  And desperately wished she could have gone inside 
and seen-- experienced -- the rooms where her father and his parents 
had lived a portion of their lives. 

When the girl was just 13, her paternal grandmother died.  And her
paternal grandfather moved to California long before she was born.  In 
fact, she only saw him twice.  Being in the house where they once had 
lived would have enriched her memories. 

But the essays I'm writing are not about the little girl.  They are
about the boy.  And some of the significant and serendipitous events 
that took place in his life between the years 1913 and 1945.  Events 
and circumstances that shaped him into the man he was to become.  A man 
of responsibility and integrity and scrupulous honesty.  A man who 
respected the authority of his parents, his church, his community, his 
country.  A man of peace who nevertheless stood firm for his principles 
when confronted with conflict or controversy. 

The little boy became a man.  The man became my father.  One of my
heros.  Except I've never exactly told him. 

If he reads my essays, he'll know. 


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