LATE AUTUMN SIXTY YEARS LATER

 

Memories, Olathe, KS

I stumbled upon a small treasure trove of yellow tinged type written papers while sorting out saved relics of the past.  The earliest hand written one involved a dream I had as a boy about The Last Day.  The remainder must have been written during my college days, perhaps for English classes or just for myself.

 One titled Alone was about a man with an airplane that found himself the lone survivor of an apocalyptic nuclear world war (The first two atomic bombs were used not long after I was born).  This copy was typed without revisions and had a nice red “A” at the top.  The others must have been first drafts with hand written revisions.  Another titled Tempest of the Kerkyons involved the nightly activities of a group of young men who were involved in a high-speed car crash.  The title came from a fictional book on a rite of passage for young men in ancient Crete Minoan courtyards of tempting fate by jumping over charging bulls.  

One typed draft I had saved titled Late Autumn involved “The soft light of a harvest moon and a quaint old man who was quietly sitting on a park bench engrossed in his private world of memories”.  That one was a bit of a show stopper because it was almost prophetic.  Had I actually been writing about my own future sixty years ago?  I have a meditation bench by my Lenten Rose Garden.   

“His solemn face calmly witnessed the placid environment while the moonlight sharply contrasted his soft white hair with the dark complexion of his shadowed face.  He was thinking of his wife now.”  “One fall night, very much like tonight he had met Mary.  The light illuminated her fair complexion and accented her youthful smile.  His weary face slowly formed a picture of contentment and joy as he remembered her as she had been that night.”  “He had known then that she was the one thing which life could hold for him.  Apparently, she had sensed it too, and they were married later in a quiet chapel on the outskirts of the big city.”   

And that was almost the way life went down, except that her name turned out to be Karen.