Still Counting Past Blessings

Still Counting Past Blessings! I’m Seventy-Seven and happy to live in the State that I’m in! As a child, Oklahoma near blew us away! The ‘Dust Bowl’ killed some too, and a passing tornado, some thought mite too friendly, missed homeplace by blocks (in the year I turned four). Then the poliovirus infected my sister! Boy (twelve at the time) got farmed out to Dad’s brother in Tulsa, a while, where I worked for my uncle remains of the summer. It's pain to explore how child ‘trophy’ was shuffled from ‘main house’ to ‘doghouse?’ My relatives fine - loss quite real with my sister near death, no friends near, so few things of my own. Though life wasn’t hard in my youth, I had little free time, less for sin I could hide from my folks or temptation to lie: we would sup, with no skew from fixed bedtimes. Dad woke at six-thirty (‘cept Sunday), kid’s doors brooked no locks. No one got to sleep-in, and Mom fixed just one breakfast, I’m telling you, Mister, though school weren’t till nine. My dad fought to be fair, but my mom could beguile to the point that I wondered at times, I confess, if close friends liked her more? She was art: laced with words so emotive, her heart minted adjectives! Writing these words still their waves smooth my way. I see days, Lord, I feel so alone! Brian Johnston 12th of May in 2020