Halley Road

A couple of people I know checked out this week which sent me back to the worst place on the planet Earth:

Wentland's Funeral Home in North Collins.

Prior to the trip to pay my last respects to two local women who gave it their all, I mowed the grass, with my brother John and rolling around cutting the grass brought wave after wave of emotion again.

Our time is finite.

Or so it seems.

What we leave behind is what defines us.

There's a street in town. It's just a little street that connects Mile Block Road to Route 62. It runs in front of the church and the Catholic grammar school where I took my daily beating from some angry nuns.

There's a really small creek there under a bridge. That creek looked like the Mississippi River when I was a young guy chasing frogs and laughing.

So much laughter.

The street also is adjacent to the camp where a bunch of teenage boys hung out, and talked about girls, and drank a few beers for the first time, and laughed.

Damn there were a ton of laughs.

There's a pole there that was replaced after a car accident involving one of my family members.

"Our insurance had to pay $950 for that pole," my mother said the other day.

We joke about the accident now. Something about a gumball and a box of Shake N Bake.

Thank God we joke about it, but I pick out that pole every single time down that short street.

There's a bunch of streetlights that line the darkened road. I always think of my teenage buddy, Dan Alff, throwing rocks with me at the globe. We were talking about girls we liked. We were talking about the life we'd live. The Wonder Years, for sure.

Danny got hit by a car and died from his injuries. He was struck less than a quarter mile from that globe.

I always think about him.

We used to trap animals back when we were about 12 years old. Or at least we talked about it. I don't think we ever trapped one, but there was a kid who knew all about such things, and he told us that he got like $50 once for a coat from a raccoon or some such bull crap.

So we tried.

That kid never really made it to adulthood either. Following a rough go of it at home he got hooked on a lot of different things, and the funny, really funny, innocent kid that he was gave way to a strung-out man who wanders the town looking for ways to make an easy buck at the expense of others.

I think of him.

At the end of the road is the church.

I always think of my days as an Altar Boy. We had a ton of laughs up there while people came in to pray for God Knows What. There are so many scenes that play in my head from those long-ago days.

I burnt my hand trying to light the candles before mass. The entire congregation laughed hard when I shook my hand in pain as the match burned down to the end.

What an idiot kid.

I think of the priests who held court at that church. They were intimidating figures who were the living, breathing hand of God in my still developing mind. I try and figure out what kind of men they were, as an adult, knowing that the priests aren't always the living example of Christ.

Just that one minute drive from one end to the other.

It all goes by really quickly.

As I turned the corner and headed up Shirley Road on Saturday I glanced at the cemetery.

I can only ever glance. I've yet to stop by. I can't bring myself to do it.

To admit that the days are numbered.

That our time is finite.

Except in what we leave behind.

We spend our days chasing so many things. We try our best to make a mark, and in moments of absolute clarity some times I can really see it.

We are alive.

Though our bodies will sell us short of what we might want to do.

We make that mark.

One way or another.

Just a quick trip down a short road.