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I have been on the road for what seemed eternity now heading to my favorite place. I haven't been there for thirty years now since I was a teenager. As I turned down the old gravel road it looked nearly abandoned with the grass growing between the tire tracks. No one had been here for awhile now. I was in a rural area, as rural as you can get. I passed the last town about twenty miles ago and if I had blinked I would have missed it too.

There were not as many farms as I remembered as I drove down the old highway full of potholes from misuse and poor maintenance. I remembered though each vacant farm, that was where Dick and Dan lived, two old bachelors who used to have a huge freezer full of candy bars that they used to let us pick from on Halloween when we were kids. Then there was the old farm where that crazy widow lived that loved to tell stories to us kids. That house had fallen in now and was almost gone taken by father time.

There was the field where I slowly cultivated the corn. I remembered the first time I did the cultivating. I was big for my age and Dad had put me to work as soon as I could push the clutch in on that old 3010 John Deere. He had taken me on one round around the field. All of sudden he stood up and put me in the seat. I was driving for a minute when he said, "You are on your own now don't run over any corn or don't come home." He was laughing his head off as he jumped off the tractor and walked home. I was scared to death at driving for the first time. But after a few years I was more at home on the tractor then in my bed. The times had sure changed since then.

I had come home after thirty years to see the old place one last time. My family was putting it up for sale. I did not have any money to buy it or I think I would have for old times sake. As I drove towards the yard I stopped at the old broken down wood gate more like an old sentinel guarding the pass with its old grey rotten boards weather beaten and broken. I opened the gate and through the trees I could see the old steel windmill by the huge old barn.

As I drove into the yard the memories came flooding back choking me with their deluge of emotions that I had thought were lost to me. There was the huge old barn. The biggest in the county at that time built by my great grandfather and his family. It stood cold and dark now with its windows all broken and wood siding bare and bleak with no color but grey from the paint disappearing from years of abuse from the weather. But all the hours we had spent in it as boys my four brothers and me.

We had stacked the hay loft full of bales every year and fed and birthed the cows in it all winter. There was the cow pen dilapidated with most of the boards lining the ground where they had fallen. That was the yard where we played cowboy and rode wild horses for fun. A dangerous sport to say the least which caused more than one broken bone. I can still remember the feel and smell of horse as I rode astride the beast trying not to fall off. It was only him and I in that moment in time to see who would win the ride. I remembered getting pushed out of the hayloft as we rough housed and swimming in the cow tank on hot days. It was good back then.

Now I came to the house. The roof was sagging and the wooden shingles brown with age had mostly been blown off. The huge old pine tree next to it had broken off and lay limp and dead with only its old stump guarding the doorway. The door was just barely on its hinges when I pushed my way in. I walked into the main room and in my mind I walked back in time. I could see my mother and father in the fading light sitting at the dinner table. Mother with her old worn faded gingham dress with her white apron upon it. It always looked just freshly washed and somehow she always looked like she had just come out of a salon even though she had never been to one. We were poor back then and there was no niceties in the house save her beautiful hutch that had been her dowry when she married dad. It contained all she possessed of any value. Grandma's china and all the pictures were kept inside there.

My father sitting there with a worried frown upon his weathered face looked up and smiled a welcome smile of a son coming home again. He had been good to me that old man. We were not the hugging kind but it was more of a feeling of belonging and love that could not be defined. That is why I am sure that we did not touch because we were afraid of cheapening it somehow with time. My parents had done there best for me and all the bad that would follow but being here now reminded me of the good times. I was naive and honest back then. What we said to each other was true and good. After I left I found out that things would never be like they was on that old farm. It had been our own little world and I had taken it for granted that everywhere was like that but it was not. Just like a book in it's pages an author can make a world just like he wants, that was our life in this house.

Where the big hole in the floor was there had been a rocking chair that mom used to read to us in. It seemed that this place was bigger back then or was it that I was shorter, I was not sure which. She would tell us stories of cowboys and pirates, everything that little boys should know. I remember the love in her voice that sounded so sweet and so strong so long ago. If only I could hear it one more time before I go.

Now I walked to the upstairs to my room. Careful not to step through the floor on a rotten board as I ascended to the top. I opened my door to my room and met myself a teenager. The things I had worried over then seemed dumb to me now. I had not even known what worry was back then somehow.

The window was broken and glass lay scattered about but my old bed seemed whole but for the layer of dust on the top sheet. I pulled it back and sat down staring out the broken window all fallen down.

I remembered sitting there when I got my first kiss from Becky, the girl of my dreams. That seemed so long ago and far away now as I shuffled my feet. I felt like the kid I was back then for a moment embarrassed and not knowing what to say. I still feel the hotness of the blush when she first said, "I love you." I had not known what to say and the moment had passed for me to make my move. If only I had done things different now I know.

I was also sitting here the day I got the news. My mother and father had been killed in a car accident one night after a wedding dance for my little brother.

I survived the funeral but never felt right after and fled this place with all its laughter. The things that made this place special were gone and replaced with depression and anger. So I took it out on the world and robbed a store down the road. I thought money might fill the hole left in the pit of my stomach. I was no crook and so I got caught and did thirty years for my crime.

That is why I have come here one more time to say goodbye to the memories erased by father time. If only there had been no accident, no robbery it would have all been different. I could still be living in these four walls with Becky and our little children. But just like this house abandoned and broken so am I lost to the innocence of this wonderful life. In these four walls I had learned how to love and my world had all come crashing down when I left. I do not know where I will go now or what I will do but I will always remember this place for what it gave me back then. I hope that someday I will find that peace and love I had here. I would not take it for granted next time if it ever happens again. So as I left I put my hand on the doorway one last time to give the old house a hug from me for all it had done. I wish I could save it but just like me it's time had come.