A Quiet and Peaceful Place

The blog has never been about trying to write well. It’s never been about good writing. You can let go of that, Marine.

Thanks.
I’m just home from dinner with my mom at our friends, the Wallace’s house. It was such a delicious dinner and such good company. They are sweet, sweet people and they’ve been good friends to my family during the time my father was ill and in the year since his passing. They have a beautiful country home back of the road a piece. It’s so quiet and peaceful out there. I really do love them and appreciate their kindness. They’re Christians and (as opposed to “but”) they love me just as I am. I like their flavor of Christianity. It seems very Christ-like.

Driving out to the Wallace’s we passed the old Plyar place– there’s only a foundation there now. I had no idea the house was leveled. I probably haven’t been out that road for forty years– not since Kenny died.

Kenny Plylar was my friend. He was six months younger than me. I didn’t have that many friends who were boys. Other boys didn’t seem to like me too much. But Kenny did. We got into a fair amount of mischief together–like boys will. One day we decided one day we’d try to find a cigarette to smoke. There’s a field down by our house where the teenagers used to come and play football on weekends. Sometimes I’d see them smoking cigarettes down there. When Kenny and I decided we were going to try to find a cigarette to smoke, I had the idea that the field would be a place to look for one. The teenagers had left behind one pack with one single cigarette in it! Isn’t that strange– how a real addict like myself seems to have this innate ability to find the shit he “needs?”

Kenny and I crawled in through the kitchen window of my grandmother’s house while she was at the grocery store and stole some matches, then went to the workshop to smoke our Winston. It was awful! and I knew beyond the shadow of any doubt that I wanted to be a smoker when I got grown!

A week later, Kenny was dead. His brother and he had been struggling over a gun (the Plylars loved guns) and it “went off.” My friend was no more.

Tonight instead of going to the Swafford’s, I rode my motorcycle to the cemetery to visit Kenny. Is it weird to say that there’s a part of me that still misses him? I mean we were only ten. That was almost forty years ago!

I’ve had to say goodbye too many times in my life to people I thought would always be there. It would be okay if that didn’t happen again.

See y’all tomorrow.