Short Stories and poems

This Big Ol’ Rock

Story of my Childhood home.

Outside of the place I once lived is this big old rock. Been there since the ice age most likely. Surrounded by cattails and half-buried in mud, unchanging as time passed. When I was a child, I saw it as a big huge thing- still is, though now it looks much smaller. The house is well over a hundred years old and it’s been in the family in a long time, last three generations at any rate. It’s been some time since I’d been there, but I finally got the chance to check it out when my older brother got it from the prior occupants, who were renting the place out from my father. To put it bluntly, Father Time took a bat to the place.

Along the one side, there’d been a row of pine trees going up this hill. I can remember crawling under some of those branches into this empty area. I would hide there, plenty of times as a child. Those trees are all gone now; killed off by one of them blights.

Only way in is through what most would call a shed, something like a lean-to; father would store wood to burn during the winter, it was the only way to heat the place for a long time. Always cold inside the place though, even in the summer. When I went inside, I noticed how things had changed; pealed paint along the floorboards, which my stepmother had painted before she and father went to their current home. The floor is unlevel; put a bowling ball down and it will roll all over. In the living room, there used to be the remains of a fireplace, used to camp out there, and me and my brothers used to use the one post to measure ourselves; all gone.

The one section of the living-room was covered linoleum, and we’d used it to place the Christmas tree mainly. Now it has the same carpet as the rest, and is used as like a computer area from what I saw.

Don’t know much about the upstairs, but some of the rooms are apparently unfinished, much like they were back when I lived there, with my brothers’ room being used by another person, and it has a different look. Same goes for the basement, though the one section is full of dirt that holds up the place.

Went back outside, and checked out more childhood memories. There was this one flower bush out front, don’t remember what it was, but it was gone. There is a lilac bush on the one side of the driveway; played with Tonka trucks at the base of it, which had a good sized pit. That pit’s been filled in, and there’s one of those home heating propane tanks by it.

I went up the hill, and checked out where a ton of blackberry and raspberry bushes grow; plenty of deer trails through them. The one neighbor had dug something of a deep trench along the property line, to keep the snow and rain from draining into his place and drowning his crops. I then went and checked out two old play sites that me and my brothers would play Pretend at; one was this trio of Aspen trees, and one was this pussy willow tree in these thorn bushes near this spring. The big aspen is in the process of being cut down; the one big branch that we’d climb on had broken off, and the rest of the tree is dead, though the other two are fine. The willow; it’s dead and covered in moss, doubt I’ll climb on it anymore. As for the spring, it once felt like a hike to get to it; not any more. As I left the place with my younger brother, I saw another change; the one pine tree by the driveway had been cut down. I remember being chased by more than a few bumblebees around that thing; hopefully no one else will.

As we drove away, we noticed the big rock. Back when we were kids, we’d imagine that pirates or explorers had buried treasure under it, and that one day we’d dig it up. Now though, I think we’ll leave it for the future, and let some other group of kids wonder what secrets it holds, as it stands sentinel over the house.