Excerpt from "The Boys of Enon Road"

Chapter 1

To us back then in those uncomplicated, calmer days, life was a bicycle and miles of open, flat road with no cars or cares on it. Life was a fishing pole with a Zebco 33 reel attached with 15 lb test line and hours and hours to fish. Life was floating lazily along in the boat, watching turtles sun themselves on the logs and stump s that stuck out of the water. Life was a baseball game in the late afternoon when the sun’s rays were not so bright in your eyes, and there was a hint of the promised cooler evening to come. Life was an ice cold, six-ounce Coca Cola drunk slowly in the shade of an old elm tree after cutting the acre or so of Aunt Alma’s yard with a push mower in the heat of the day. Life was up early, out the door, and into the woods to run, rip, shout, and fight imaginary enemies or each other. Life was eating ice cream, watermelon, and grilled out hotdogs and hamburgers and watching or playing baseball on the Fourth of July. Life was simple. You made no long-term plans and didn’t know nor care what commitment meant. You had no schedule to keep (other than being close by when Mom called you in to lunch or supper). You had no place to be and no time to be there. You took each day as it came. You didn’t know you were doing it, but you were still living life to the fullest. You ran hard from the moment you left the house with the screen door flapping behind you in the morning, until the last light of day left the sky when Mom called you in, dirty, nasty, sweaty, filthy and tired, but happy. Oh, just to live those carefree days one more time when terrible things like death were unknown to us; when hospitals were for birthing babies or having your tonsils removed. In those days, everything we needed was provided because we didn’t need much besides food, an occasional patch for our flat bike tires, and maybe a new baseball. I wish we could live without visits to the funeral homes and cemeteries with an ever increasing frequency. I want to live not facing sickness; to live thinking I will never grow old; to live without fear of Alzheimer’s, stroke, heart attack or cancer; to live without the accompanying pains of aging like arthritis or aggravations of failing eyesight; to live without worrying about my weight or diet. I want to live without taking blood pressure medicine or pills for this ailment or that ailment; to live without financial stress and family crisis; to live looking forward only to the next meal, the next game, or the next fishing excursion. Life was like that for the boys of Enon Road in the summer of 1968.