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{"id":68,"date":"2014-01-22T18:39:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T00:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/?p=68"},"modified":"2014-04-03T19:08:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T00:08:15","slug":"some-musings-of-times-past-and-loves-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"Some Musings of Times Past and Love Lost"},"content":{"rendered":"The Field, the Plane, and War<\/b><\/p>\n
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Prologue:\u00a0 The House on House Street<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Summers in Houston are always hot; but this particular year it just seemed hotter than usual.\u00a0 The sun, rising in a slow, lazy, almost vertical arch, would try its best to burn away the sticky and rancid layer of humidity that had settled heavily upon the crusted dry earth during the night.\u00a0 By mid-day, and when it was near its apex above the chalky shell laden streets of the poverty torn neighborhood called \u201cEl Crisol\u201d, the stifling heat had finally pushed the old women out onto rickety wooden porches where they sat on squeaky chairs frantically fanning themselves with round paper fans; Jesus and Crespo & Sons Funeral Home, sharing equal duty on each side of the paper fans would take turns pushing thick moist air onto dull wrinkled brown skin.\u00a0 Someone brought out one of their most prized possessions, a small plastic portable radio, and tuned in to the only Spanish language station available in 1950 this far north of the border.\u00a0 So, carried on the occasional puff of hot dusty air were the tinny strains of accordions, guitars and the rat-a-tat-tat of German inspired Mexican polkas.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n House Street, later renamed Kashmere Lane, is located a few miles east and north of the center of Houston.\u00a0 Running north and south it branches off of Liberty Road, a once heavily traveled thoroughfare-carrying traffic from U.S. 59N, eastbound to the rail yards and to the industrial factories in east Houston.\u00a0 In the 1950\u2019s a large railroad yard owned by Southern Pacific Railroad was situated just to the south of Liberty Road.\u00a0 Besides railcar and locomotive repair, along with railroad ties, the many hundreds of thousands of long wooden poles needed by the city to string its ever growing network of utility wires, streetlights and phone lines were delivered daily to one of two large ramshackle warehouses on the rail yard grounds.\u00a0 In the first warehouse the poles would then be finished, sized, and piled outside the second warehouse.\u00a0 In this creosote plant the various wood products would be dipped into the boiling hot black tarry solution to weatherproof them against the mostly hot and humid Texas weather.\u00a0 The same process was used for the railroad ties.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Interestingly because most of the streets that branched off to the north of Liberty Road were shell topped and not paved; and they would receive a regular spraying of a combination of creosote and used motor oil to keep the dust down.\u00a0 The constant cooking of the creosote and its being sprayed on our streets created a permanent smell that permeated our entire neighborhood all year around.\u00a0 On the moist hot breezes sweeping gently from the south the pungent smell of creosote would ride over the dusty shell streets and threadbare yards, taking with it the contaminated and asbestos laced street dust.\u00a0 Slipping in through the open doors and windows it would permanently settle onto faded thin chenille bedspreads, mismatched long overused terrycloth towels and freshly hand scrubbed denim.\u00a0 Given that all of our houses had screened doors and windows commonly left open for ventilation it didn\u2019t matter how often or how hard one scrubbed the floors or dusted the furniture, there would always be a light coating of white dust on everything.\u00a0 Since the creosote smell and the sticky dust were there all the time, the entire neighborhood just got used to it and never complained.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In hindsight I suppose the runoff from the occasional rains seeped down into our water supply and provided us with an and additional and unwelcome cocktail of harmful carcinogens with every glass of water we drank.\u00a0 Further, the flying street dust was certainly sucked into our lungs everyday and probably contributed greatly to my lingering case of juvenile asthma.\u00a0 On the positive side the Houston water was also naturally heavily fluorinated, and as a result I ended up growing a set of teeth that would go on to fiscally disappoint and amaze many dentists in my lifetime.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Because most barrios bore names like, \u201cMagnolia\u201d, \u201cSecond Ward\u201d, and \u201cColonia Villa\u201d, our neighborhood came to be known as \u201cEl Crisol\u201d\u2014a rough Tex-Mex, and somewhat convoluted, if not appropriate, derivative of the word, creosote.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Children of El Crisol, playing with rocks, sticks, and roly-poly bugs, and mostly having shed most of their clothes in the stifling heat, lay under the merciful shadows of a few ancient pin oak trees whose thick branches reaching out from their trunks had finally given in to gravity and the heat, and hung low to the ground in gentle submissive swaying bows. The singsong Spanglish conversations, sometimes erupting in angry soprano pitched yells, mixed with the spirited Mexican music were mostly carried up and away floating on the heat radiated by the sun\u2019s rays bouncing off the dry Houston hardpan.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Away from the little groups of kids scattered here and there along the dusty street that fronted old frame homes elevated by cinder blocks, was I.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t want to play with everyone else; it was more like they didn\u2019t want to play with me.\u00a0 At eight years of age I was pitifully skinny, rib cage clearly etched on the front of my body, pyramid like shoulder blades rising like hackles on my back, and legs so thin that my knees could have passed for baseballs–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 minus the fancy red stitching.\u00a0 Thanks to a lack of proper diet, I carried that frightening physique all the way to my induction into the Air Force some ten years later, where my newly assigned drill sergeant would be shocked to note that at five feet eleven inches I weighed 127 pounds in my skivvies, and sported a twenty-six inch waist. \u00a0Right then and there he would decide that his mission on earth would be to fatten me up and make me into a real and better human.\u00a0 He would succeed in fattening me up, but after six weeks of marching, drilling, and learning how to kill I don\u2019t believe I was a better human\u2014just a fatter one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But, I digress.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our house was located, oddly enough, at 5505 House Street.\u00a0 It was of similar architecture as all the other houses on that street, built with no particular plan in mind except that it was set back a full one hundred feet, or so, from the street.\u00a0 The lot our house was on was no larger than any of the other lots either, but because of the structure\u2019s odd placement we ended up having a huge front yard.\u00a0 The backyard, however, was almost non-existent.\u00a0 Upon exiting the back door I would always have to be careful to make an immediate right or left turn as soon as my foot left the last step.\u00a0 Otherwise, I would have been inconveniently impaled on the chain link fence that ran the width of our backyard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On one side of the house ran a four-foot high raggedy and wavy chain link fence that connected to the one in the back yard.\u00a0 It separated our front yard from a neighbor whose house faced in such a manner that the fence bordered his back yard<\/i>.\u00a0 What landscaping we didn\u2019t have he had in spades.\u00a0 Small trees, bushes, overgrown grass, honeysuckle vines all grew up to, and into, the fence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the other side was \u201cOrosco Grocery\u201d (Tienda Orosco).\u00a0 A whitewashed frame structure, long faded out, it had once been a rather large house (it actually fronted House Street and was set back a reasonable distance) and had been gutted of most of its interior walls then outfitted with shelves, counters and display stands.\u00a0 It was tended by Henry Orosco, (Enrique Orosco), a lifelong bachelor and brother to my Aunt Janie\u2019s first ex-husband Guadalupe (Lupe) Orosco.\u00a0 It was actually owned and managed by Francisca Orosco, Henry\u2019s mother and my aunt Janie\u2019s ex-mother-in-law.\u00a0 She also owned a bakery (Panaderia Orosco) a few blocks south of our house and in front of Our Lady Of Sorrows Catholic Church, and a wholesale beer and soda business on the corner of Libery Road and Kashmere Lane (House Street).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Francisca could normally be found stalking around her grocery store with a notebook in hand containing each purchase members of the neighborhood had made on credit.\u00a0 She insisted that their tabs be settled on payday but was also known to have forgiven (forgotten) several families\u2019 grocery tabs when illness or layoffs occurred. The store was where we would buy our staples, where I would hang out with my neighborhood buddies, and where at the age of fourteen on a steamy Fourth of July afternoon, I would come perilously close to having my life end.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When my parents first found the house on House Street they arranged to meet with the owner.\u00a0 During their first negotiating session regarding the possible renting of the house my father asked the landlord if he could do something a little different with the front yard.\u00a0 Well, the landlord wondered, what did he have in mind?\u00a0 The pathetic patches of grass spotting the front yard could be landscaped into something a little more decorative, my dad suggested.\u00a0 He said he had some ideas but wanted to make sure he had a free hand in whatever he decided to do.\u00a0 Imagining a small but positive rise in the value of this pathetic piece of dirt the landlord quickly agreed and sweetened the deal by offering to shave $5 off the monthly rental\u2014effective upon completion of said improvements.<\/p>\n Having gotten the OK to press on and apply his landscaping skills to the front yard my dad proceeded to do what he really wanted to do in the first place:\u00a0 park his cars (all old, in various states of disrepair, and none actually running) in front of the house.\u00a0 In a very short time the mix of toxic chemicals found in gasoline, motor oil, anti-freeze, and brake fluid, leaking from various components of every car, all combined to do a real whack job on the few clumps of San Augustine grass that had stubbornly rooted to the hard dry gray dirt.\u00a0 The most effective weed\/grass killer in production during that time could not have been more effective in destroying all rooted living plant life in that yard.\u00a0 In three months\u2019 time the large area fronting the street had been transformed into a spotty gray greasy-sticky soil, in which no form of life could ever possibly survive.\u00a0 My father\u2019s master plan had now been executed and the need to mow had now been effectively eliminated; along with any desire that my mom might\u2019ve had for planting flowers\u2014or anything else for that matter.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the landlord saw the result of my dad\u2019s \u201clandscaping\u201d he threatened to throw us out on our ear.\u00a0 But, as my father seriously asked, who would want to rent a house that had a huge environmentally challenged front yard?\u00a0 No one, he quickly answered himself.\u00a0 But, we would be happy to live there.\u00a0 And, for the trouble, he would add a crisp five-dollar note to each month\u2019s rent, plus take loving care of the 2 foot by 35 foot strip of surviving grass that made up our back yard.\u00a0 Grudgingly the landlord agreed, and we were set.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Across House Street, directly in front of our house was a vacant field.\u00a0 It was a large rectangular piece of land, four blocks square, and as far as anyone knew no one or nothing had ever existed there.\u00a0 It was completely empty of anything save a low growing type of brush that apparently never needed mowing.\u00a0 No one seemed to know who owned it, or why it had never been converted to slum houses like ours.\u00a0 During the few times that I dared cross the street and investigate the field I found that it was fraught with loose stones, dry caked soil and snakes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was surrounded on the other three sides by little frame houses like ours, but the ones directly across the field from us held the greatest curiosity for the brown skinned children of the barrio.\u00a0 Those houses were occupied by black families, (we referred to them as \u201cnegritos\u201d, or \u201clittle negroes\u201d), and only on rare occasions did any House Street resident ever see any activity coming from those houses.\u00a0 To my knowledge no adult from our side of the field ever crossed over to those houses.\u00a0 It was as if the people who lived over there were residents of another planet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But for the children, black and brown, that lived on opposite sides, the field existed for one purpose: La guerra\u2014war.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Field<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Playing in the oily dirt that was my front yard on a hot and sweaty day in Houston in early 1949, I was completely unprepared for the sound I began to hear.\u00a0 It entered my consciousness stealthily and gently, and eased itself, slowly growing larger, into the empty living room of my mind.\u00a0 At first a hum, then an insistent and barely perceptible drone, rising ever so minutely in volume and tone, it grew and grew until it begged for my attention and I could ignore it no longer.<\/p>\n Even as a young child I knew I loved airplanes.\u00a0 As early as I can remember I would dream about them, imagine how it might feel to be in one, and then I would try to draw them.\u00a0 The drawings showed fat perpendicular wings outlined in blue crayon, raggedly filled in with jerky up-and-down strokes in green or brown Crayola, separated by a slug-like fuselage and finished off with an almost triangular and most irregular windscreen.\u00a0 Almost as an afterthought I would scratch in spooky looking stickmen pilots complete with enormously shaped eyes\u2014their little stick arms waving against the imagined and vicious head wind.\u00a0 But I knew my airplane could fly.\u00a0 I saw it every time I closed my eyes. It would soar and dive and turn and spin.\u00a0 Its missing engines making such a mighty roar my throat would begin to itch and burn from the efforts they made in flight.\u00a0 Oh, the roar!<\/i><\/p>\n The droning sound was slowly growing into a soft roar.\u00a0 It was not coming from me, or anything near me, but from somewhere above and to my right.\u00a0 Deep in my imagination, feeling the salty trickle of sweat sliding down my back and making the backs of my knees sticky, I began to concentrate on that sound.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n The field was wide and empty, yet full of mysteries as seen through the eyes of a skinny ten-year-old half French and half Mexican boy.\u00a0 There were days during the hot summers in Houston when I would awaken slowly, having dreamed of uncovering the field\u2019s secrets that I knew existed, only to forget those dreams even before the cobwebs of slumber had fully cleared.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was covered by a combination of short scrubby brown grass, hard packed gray soil and trash, and to my knowledge nothing had ever been built on it.\u00a0 No one in the neighborhood seemed to know who owned it, and I guess that at one time it may have served some purpose; but for as long as my parents and I lived in the neighborhood, the lot remained vacant and empty.\u00a0 In the squatty sun bleached wood frame houses on the far side of the field people who we had never met seemed to live out their lives in complete anonymity.\u00a0 Although similar in construction to our houses, they somehow seemed to look better kept than ours.\u00a0 From what I could see they seemed to have lawns, and a couple sported single car garages.\u00a0 And, oh yes, they were all black.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes the children that lived over there ventured onto the lot and headed in our direction.\u00a0 Perhaps they just thought us as strange as we thought they were and just wanted to meet us.\u00a0 But we with our limited imagination would always assume that their movement towards us was some sort of aggression and we took it as a challenge.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, and certainly not to show fear then would begin calling out to our neighborhood, \u201cAll\u00e1 vienen los negritos\u201d.\u00a0 Here come the little Negroes, was the marshaling cry\u2014and the battle was on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How the next event developed, or which group was the first to pick up a weapon, I don\u2019t remember.\u00a0 But, having reached a point forty or fifty feet from each other, both sides, would begin to arm themselves with \u201cterromotes\u201d, chunks of dried mud and clay, suitable for chunking.\u00a0 Steadily advancing on each other not a word would be said until each side reached that invisible line that we all knew existed.\u00a0 At that point forward movement would cease, and after sizing each other up and picking out individual targets both sides would launch into a fierce, chunking frenzy each hoping to score a direct hit on someone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rarely would the projectiles reach, much less hit, anyone or anything, but both sides, now miniature armies, having depleted their ammunition would retreat to the rear to reload.\u00a0 This would continue until one side, or the other would tire, lose interest or score a direct hit on someone\u2019s noggin.\u00a0 If a hit were scored, more often than not, the injured party and his fellow soldiers would scream a few threats and eventually retreat home.\u00a0 They would back up slowly throwing whatever they could pick up, cast dirty looks and by head jerks and thrusting chins, would silently promise a rematch very soon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We never thought to ask just who they were\u2014los negritos, and I\u2019m sure they wondered the same about us.\u00a0 During that time schools were still segregated so there was no real social contact with either group. What was certain was that the large empty field existed for me not only as a source of adventure and mystery, but also as a dividing line between two warring factions.\u00a0 We fought with the other side not because of any racial motives, but because they lived over there and we lived over here.\u00a0 Our battles occurred sporadically, never really increasing in violence or intensity until the inevitable finally happened.\u00a0 During a grand and particularly violent battle, and just when I thought the \u201cother-siders\u201d could never hit anything, I looked up and the lights went out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now the roar, just as it was getting louder began to falter; sputter, rise and fall in pitch.\u00a0 Its irregularity and increasing volume held my attention completely.\u00a0 Looking up, and to my right I was suddenly blinded by the sun\u2019s harsh wall of light.\u00a0 I quickly looked slightly away, and blinking rapidly to regain my vision and shaking my head to make the bright red balls that had suddenly appeared in my vision slide to one side, I caught what seemed to be a sharp metallic glint.\u00a0 Trying not to look directly at the newfound object, and at the same time, avert my gaze away from the sun, I began to track a silver object that grew in size as its sound increased exponentially.\u00a0 My mind told me what it had to be, but I refused to believe the message.\u00a0 Not here, not now!\u00a0 Impossible!<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Prior to the darkness I recall picking up what I considered a prize terromote; large, heavy\u2014slightly dry, and caked on the outside but soft and full of moisture on the inside.\u00a0 Perfect.\u00a0 If I threw it with just enough arc and height it would come straight down and have a really good chance of landing on one of the other-sider\u2019s head.\u00a0 That would be grand: to score a direct hit with the most perfect mud and clay projectile that mother earth could manufacture.\u00a0 I straightened up, drew back, and judged the distance between the nearest other-sider and myself.\u00a0 Having eyeballed the correct distance, I glanced up to pinpoint the exact spot in space that I would have to aim for to achieve the most accurate parabolic trajectory, and drew back.\u00a0 But while still solving the launch solution, and to my brief surprise, there was suddenly no sky to see.\u00a0 There was only darkness, and there with it a faint crunching sound that seemed to echo down through my bones.\u00a0 I tried to shake my head to reassess and resolve the firing problem, and again tried to look up into the sky.\u00a0 All that my efforts won me now was a dull searing pain somewhere on my face.\u00a0 Through the roaring that had suddenly begun somewhere in the back of my head, I could also hear my friends, and they didn\u2019t sound like they were making war.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Any attempt to turn my head was rewarded with a wave of nausea and confusion.\u00a0 Fighting through the pain I began to concentrate on remembering how to open my eyes and find my vision.\u00a0 As in slow motion blurry figures seemed to be forming through the dark haze.\u00a0 Finally with a gargantuan effort I brought those figures into focus.\u00a0 Hmm, scraggly brown grass and weeds, and growing horizontally to boot!\u00a0 I slowly began to realize that I was no longer standing, and that in fact I was on my back, on the ground, and boy, did something not feel right on my face.\u00a0 My left hand slowly came up to clear the darkness and it found wet warm liquid, and a new third nostril.\u00a0 I began to panic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My brain quickly sent an urgent message to my mouth and tongue: \u00a0\u201cSay something, don\u2019t just sit there open and lolling.\u201d\u00a0 The best that mouth and company could come up with was a pathetic and highly inefficient gacking and snorking sound\u2014hardly its best work\u2014even at this young age.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While all this was going on, and my left hand was gingerly exploring the wonderment of that third nostril, my ears heard one of my comrades ask if \u201che\u201d was dying.\u00a0 That got my mental ticker tape smoking and I tried to sit up.\u00a0 Mistake!!\u00a0 A giant wave of nausea brought with it what was left of my bologna sandwich and RC Cola and delivered it to the back of my throat.\u00a0 Tongue, quickly sensing a reverse delivery, retracted and offered no resistance to the package so rudely delivered by stomach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Having achieved a certain degree of success managing this operation I willed my eyes to open, focus and see.\u00a0 Hardly the stuff of miracles, but the lids did part and the eyes began receive data that consisted mostly of dark and floating shadows.\u00a0 My friends now slowly began to materialize in my field of vision, and my tongue, finally relieved of those annoying messages from the brain, began to involuntarily sweep out mud and clay from its daily resting place.\u00a0 While performing this menial task it sent back a message of its own: Gee, there\u2019s blood here too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The silver object in the sky now began to take form.\u00a0 An airplane!\u00a0 And it was coming down fast and noisy, wings rocking slowly up and down.\u00a0 It was headed for our field of battle:\u00a0 the lot. . And it was going to land! <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Hands went up under my armpits and I was helped up.\u00a0 The faces that began to come into focus were full of interesting expressions:\u00a0 those of awe, fear and shock.\u00a0 It was then I tasted the blood.\u00a0 That third nostril was a rip in my nose that began on the left side, where nose and face join, and ran horizontally all the way to the other side.\u00a0 I had been hit dead-on with a giant terromote, square on the nose.\u00a0 One that had all the necessary ingredients and a few extra to boot:\u00a0 a good-sized piece of embedded paving stone.<\/p>\n As a young boy fascinated by airplanes I would regularly badger my mother for any loose change she had so I could save up enough to buy those plastic airplane models that came in forty or fifty pieces, and were to be put together with a liquid epoxy.\u00a0 I was mostly interested in military models, mostly World War II fighters and bombers.\u00a0 Since jet engines were still in the planning stages then, all my models came with the appropriate glue-on propellers.\u00a0 These, during the gluing process, would quickly become part of my fingers or hands, or if very lucky, be destined to forever be on the wing or engine of the model never to ever spin due to the glut of glue I had clumsily applied everywhere.\u00a0 But I knew my planes, and this one really looked like the North American T-6D \u201cMosquito\u201d that I had just put together a few weeks before.<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now in full panic mode I turned and began to run back to my house.\u00a0 I could hear my friends yelling something to me, but I was so concerned with my injury and the blood now streaming onto my white t-shirt that I could not make out the words.\u00a0 I had to get home, fast.\u00a0 I took our front steps, two at a time, all the while yelling for my mother.\u00a0 Just as I reached the door I saw her, also in panic mode, racing across the living room coming towards me.\u00a0 Her mouth was open, her hair flying and her eyes wide, were focused on not my nose, but my used-to-be-white T-shirt.\u00a0 Now my panic did an immediate about face, disappeared, and was instantly replaced by wrenching fear.\u00a0 I had ruined my shirt and now my mother was going to kill me!\u00a0 My injured nose no longer was the focus of my pain and fear.\u00a0 I was going to die at the hands of my mother!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yes, it was a T-6D!\u00a0 The box the model had come in said that <\/i>the T-6, originally known as the Texan, was the sole single-engine advanced trainer for the USAAF during World War II.\u00a0 Silver, with a snub nose, short fuselage and extended cockpit, it was still being used by some training squadrons to train fledgling pilots.\u00a0 And it seemed about ready to touch down on the field. \u00a0What was it doing?\u00a0 What was I seeing?\u00a0 My eyes blinked furiously and began to water, the moisture feeling slightly cool and sticky on the outside edges of my eyelids.\u00a0 For the first time in my life I felt my heart beating heavily, rapidly, and irregularly in my chest.\u00a0 (This event was a foreshadowing of what I would come to know as one of my body\u2019s defective systems, and a source of much anxiety and fear in my later years.)\u00a0 The plane swooped down low, appearing to come within just feet of the roof of one of the houses bordering the right end of the field.\u00a0 Just then all sound coming from the plane stopped.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Through my now slowly swelling eyes I saw my mother reach out with her left hand.\u00a0 I flinched, began to duck, anticipating like a good boxer the punch coming from my right side.\u00a0 But the blow didn\u2019t strike.\u00a0 Instead I was grabbed by the back of the head and drawn gently into my mother\u2019s bosom.\u00a0 She was on her knees, her arms now wrapping around my neck and shoulders, drawing me close to her\u2026softly murmuring, almost whispering, reassuring.\u00a0 I began to cry.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had grown so accustomed to the irregular sound of the plane\u2019s engine that when it quit the silence that it made was almost deafening.\u00a0 I heard the wind slipping through the drying brittle grass that covered the field, the soft rasping sound my calloused bare feet were making in the chalky petrified dust that was my front yard and the barely perceptible hum coming from the flies that insisted on tasting the salty crusting sweat quickly evaporating on my neck and back.\u00a0 The wings rocked a bit, up and down, and for the first time I saw the propeller.\u00a0 It seemed to spin clockwise, reverse quickly and go counterclockwise, and then it stopped all at once.\u00a0 I could make out the four blades, gray with red tips.\u00a0 And it was so large and so still.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Sobs came from the depths of my belly, and for the first time I became aware of the raw burning ache, on and in, my face.\u00a0 With involuntary hiccup-like gasps I tried to say that I was sorry for having ruined my shirt, sorry for having ruined my face and maybe we could just forget about the whole thing somehow and have some Kool-Aid.\u00a0 But words were not being formed in their normal manner.\u00a0 Oh, they were coming from my brain OK, but once they got down into the facial area they kind of got messed up.\u00a0 So, I pressed the side of my head harder into my mom\u2019s chest and bawled.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She scooped me up and carried me through the door and into the house.\u00a0 She walked quickly, just short of a run, and with long gliding steps covered the area between the front door and our bathroom in land record time.\u00a0 I closed my eyes and hoped that her disposition didn\u2019t take a turn south when she realized that I was bleeding onto her dress, her arms, and the worn linoleum floor.\u00a0 She stopped suddenly and I felt myself being lowered.\u00a0 I forced my eyes open and saw that she was placing me into the yellowed old porcelain tub with the squeaky faucet and the rusted drain.\u00a0 I lay on my side and she began to pull the t-shirt over my head.\u00a0 At almost the same time I heard the faucet shriek and then cold water splashed onto my head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For a few seconds it seemed to hover, nose high and tail low.\u00a0 Then a quick cloud of dust flew up and around the wings as the small black wheels made contact with the gritty dry surface of the field.\u00a0 The wings looked as if they would generate enough energy to pick the plane up again on their own as they flapped crazily up and down as the plane traveled the length of the field.\u00a0 The tail touched the ground and also began to bounce in counter rhythm to the wings\u2019 motion; all this time with the propeller at a dead stop.\u00a0 Slower and slower, until the wings, tail, and the sleek silver body finally stopped.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Through my tear filled eyes I saw the clear water quickly turn red and swirl rapidly down the rusty drain.\u00a0 At the same instant a sharp searing burning pain gripped my face and I tried to recoil and pull my head from my mother\u2019s firm grip.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cC\u00e1lmate mijito\u201d, she said.\u00a0 \u201cTengo que lavarte la cara y limpiarte la sangre.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The faucet squeaked shut I was gently guided onto my mother\u2019s lap.\u00a0 She positioned my head so that my neck was arched across her leg and a soft dry towel was gently placed on my eyes and nose where a throbbing dull ache was beginning to grow.\u00a0\u00a0 My eyes had been closed but when the towel was lifted off my face I opened them long enough to see where a large deep red stain had soaked in.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s face came into view as she intently focused on the center of my face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLe voy a hablar al m\u00e9dico porque parece que te quebraste la nariz,\u201d she softly said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The doctor had to be called to look at what she thought was a very broken nose.\u00a0 But, I worried deep inside, where would the money come from?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She folded the towel over to an unstained area and placed it back on my face.\u00a0 Picking me up again she carried me to my bed and gently set me down.\u00a0 Taking my right hand she guided it up to where the towel was and asked me to hold it in place.\u00a0 She whispered out of the room and out the front door to go to Henry\u2019s Store to use the store\u2019s phone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I stood still in stark amazement at what I was seeing.\u00a0 The very same airplane that I had managed to mangle with glue and clumsy fingers putting its various miniature parts together was now sitting in the field in full size and with a real pilot.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Slowly at first, then into a trot and finally a flat out run, I crossed House Street and jumped the ditch bordering the field.\u00a0 Twenty yards in I came to a sudden stop.\u00a0 Sirens\u2014lots of them began to shrill into my ears. Looking to my left towards the Catholic Church two blocks away I spotted red flashing lights growing larger and larger.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n As I squinted in the bright afternoon sunshine I also noticed that a few of the local adult residents from all four sides of the field, shaken out of their afternoon doldrums by the sound of the aircraft\u2019s engine, had begun to drift across the street and onto the field.\u00a0 They too had been abruptly frozen in their steps by the sound of the sirens.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Looking back at the airplane I saw the aluminum latticed cockpit canopy pop open revealing not one but two pilots.\u00a0 Ignoring the slew of oncoming black police cars that were rapidly bearing down on the scenes I started to walk towards the plane.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n The sharp throbbing pain coming from the center of my face and radiating up and back into my head was beginning to fade slightly; not so piercing now, but mutating into a dull persistent thudding ache.\u00a0 The cool moist towel I had been holding over my face now felt tacky and warm.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ever so gradually, a dreamy grogginess began to ooze over me, and a sleepy weakness slowly lapped over my barely conscious mind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c\u00a1FRANCISCO!\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n The name yelled at such a volume that even the wail of a dozen police cars, motorcycles and fire engines couldn\u2019t drown it out.\u00a0 Feeling a sudden stab of fear I turned back to see my mother, skirts flying and arms pumping, dashing across the street.\u00a0 My God!\u00a0 I had never seen her run, much less clear the ditch running between the street and the field in one gigantic stride.\u00a0 I planted my bare feet into the rocky soil and gave up any hope of outrunning her.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201c\u00a1FRANCISCO!\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Again.\u00a0 The name usually accompanied by a rage filled face, and used whenever a formal ass whipping was pending.\u00a0 I turned to face her and instantly knew what a bull fighter must feel when caught flatfooted minus a cape and sword by a stampeding bull.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cAqu\u00ed estoy, mam\u00e1\u201d, was all I could muster at that moment.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n She was now almost on me and I could see that she was angry and exhausted at the same time.\u00a0 Reaching out she grabbed me by the shoulder, and without a word began to march me back to our house.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cPero, mam\u00e1, el avi\u00f3n\u2014 \u00bfno lo vez?\u201d I tried to sputter out.\u00a0 How can she not see the plane?<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Her response was short and sweet, \u201cIt\u2019s none of our business, mijo\u201d And off we went.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Trying not to stumble while being dragged we passed between two fire engines whose crews had left the engines running, Never having seen one up close I was admiring the sheer size of the machine when I noted my reflection in the incredibly shiny red surface of the powder-puff fenders.\u00a0 I saw a pitifully bony kid, skinny beyond belief, barefoot, and wearing only a pair of old khaki pants with the cuffs and bottoms completely worn off.\u00a0 Sporting an \u201coutie\u201d belly button the size of a biggie marble, I saw a slightly distended belly that only much later in my life I understood to be a symptom of malnourishment.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time for your nap\u201d, my mother said in a matter of fact voice.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n What? Now?\u00a0 Just as an airplane lands in our field I have to take a nap?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 But there was no argument to be made when my mother was in her vicious mood.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Up the stairs, onto the porch, into the house and right up to my bed I was pulled.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThere, get in and take your nap.\u00a0 I\u2019ll wake you before dinner.\u201d\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Faced with a choice of a nap or a whipping for disobeying, I reluctantly crawled in.\u00a0 Mom pulled the thin sheet up to my chin and said softly while slowly moving her head from side to side, \u201cIt\u2019s none of our business, now sleep.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n And sleep I did.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n As the layers of slumber began to softly slide away, an uncomfortable ache began to push in on my consciousness.\u00a0 Far off I sensed a throaty moist rattling sound coming from deep inside my chest.\u00a0 Breathy moans, then soft hands were cradling my head turning me gently this way and that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAy, mijito\u201d, a loving voice said.\u00a0 \u201cPobrecito.\u00a0 \u00bfTe duele mucho?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo mam\u00e1, it doesn\u2019t hurt that much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What?\u00a0 Now almost fully awake I slowly began to understand.\u00a0 \u201cWell, a little I guess\u201d, I whispered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, doctor Wilkinson is on his way so just keep your head down.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now I\u2019ve got it.\u00a0 The fight in the field and me getting beaned right on my nose.\u00a0 And then blood, lots of it.\u00a0 And my mother, why didn\u2019t she beat me to within an inch of my life for messing up my t-shirt so badly?\u00a0\u00a0 I felt my mother\u2019s hands push another pillow under my head, making the dull thudding in the middle of my face dial up a few notches.\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 I started to reach up to feel my face but my hand was intercepted by a strong grip on my wrist.\u00a0 My mother\u2019s face came into focus.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u00a0 Don\u2019t touch anything until the doctor gets here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBut mom, it kinda hurts, and it stings a little bit.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t see too good.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI know.\u00a0 That\u2019s the wet towel over your nose.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My nose?\u00a0 That must be the soggy lumpy throbbing thing that\u2019s hurting me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOK, can I have some water?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWell, no.\u00a0 But you can suck on this other towel.\u00a0 It\u2019s wet.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The \u201csucking the towel\u201d was a special trick that my mother had learned when I had broken my arm at the age of five.\u00a0 After being set and encased in a plaster cast I was awakened from the anesthesia slumber I had been put under and was immediately gripped by a raging thirst.\u00a0 The attending nurse explained that if I drank water that soon after coming out of anesthesia I would vomit and be in danger of choking.\u00a0 Instead, she explained, it was advisable to soak a clean towel in cold water and let me suck the moisture out.\u00a0 Well ever since then anytime I got sick with a cold, got a vaccination, cut myself, coughed, sneezed or otherwise looked pale, out would come the soaking wet towel for me to suck on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And here it was again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMom, can\u2019t I just get a glass of water?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u00a0 And have you choke?\u00a0 No, se\u00f1or\u2014suck.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A short time later doctor Wilkinson arrived in his little black Ford coupe.\u00a0 My mother hurried\u00a0 to let him in. \u00a0 Carrying his overstuffed leather bag and looking a little bedraggled, he shuffled up to my bed.\u00a0 Over the cool moist towel I saw him sit on the bed\u2019s edge and reach down into his bag.\u00a0 Removing a stethoscope he draped it over his neck and softly said, \u201cOK, let\u2019s see what we\u2019ve got here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He gently lifted the towel off my face and I saw that it was heavily stained with blood.\u00a0 He looked at it briefly then shifted his gaze back to my aching nose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHmm,\u201d he said pensively.\u00a0 \u201cCan you breathe through your nose for me?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDou\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOK, let\u2019s take a look.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Broken nose, bruised eye, and injured pride made up the full the diagnosis.\u00a0 Although my two front teeth felt loose the doctor told my mom that they would tighten back up in a couple of days.\u00a0 There was a horizontal gash across the bridge of my nose that would heal nicely without stitches, and my nostrils were unceremoniously packed with cotton and gauze stoppers to help the break heal.\u00a0 After cleaning the open cut with wooden cotton tips soaked in some kind of liquid that had to be distilled from habanero peppers he covered it with a gauze and tape bandage.\u00a0 To further humiliate me he deftly rolled me over, pulled my pants and shorts down and stabbed me in the right butt cheek.\u00a0 Hard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cGaaaaa!!,\u201d was all I could think to say.\u00a0 And in a few seconds I sunk softly and quietly into a deep dark place to sleep and to dream.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMommy!\u201d\u00a0 The word was spoken in a soft whiney tone.\u00a0 \u201cMommy?\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n I saw that I was still in bed sleeping soundly.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cMama.\u201d\u00a0 Is the plane still there? My mind was asking.\u00a0 If I could just pick my head up off the pillow and look out the window I could be sure.\u00a0 But, how?\u00a0 I saw that I was just lying there breathing noisily through my mouth\u2014my nose covered with a white patch.\u00a0 My mind would not, could not, let my eyes open; but I could see me from above my bed.\u00a0 There, to my left was the window.\u00a0 If I could just make my head turn I could see.\u00a0 But it was too much.\u00a0 Drifting down now, closer to me, over me, then dark.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cFrankie\u201d, was the sound parting the blackness.\u00a0 \u201cFrankie!\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cUhmm\u201d, I mumbled.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cFrankie, wake up.\u201d\u00a0 It was my mother, demanding.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My eyelids strained to part, and when they finally did a sharp bright flash of light seared into me.\u00a0 Light fogginess began to clear and I focused, squinting, blinking, and saw her face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHow do you feel\u201d?, she whispered.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cUh, I don\u2019t know\u201d, I managed to say.\u00a0 \u201cIs the plane still there\u201d?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhat plane, hijo?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou know, the plane that came down in the field\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMijo\u201d, you need to sit up and take this aspirin\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What did she mean \u201cwhat plane\u201d?\u00a0 She was there!\u00a0 She dragged me back across the street back to our house and put me in bed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMom, you know.\u00a0 You told me it was none of our business\u201d, I pleaded.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAnd it probably wasn\u2019t\u201d, she gently replied.\u00a0 \u201cNow, take this aspirin.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Turning my head sharply away from her hands, one holding an aspirin and the other an old Bama jelly jar with water, I looked out the window across our pitiful front yard towards the field.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cHey, turn back around here and take this aspirin and water or I\u2019ll call Doctor Wilkinson to\u00a0\u00a0 have him come back and give you another shot in the butt.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBut Mom,\u201d I whined.\u00a0 \u201cI wanna see what happened to the airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cLook,\u201d she said sternly.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know what airplane you\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 You probably dreamed it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking out the window and straining to focus on the field I saw nothing but knee high brown weeds gently waving in the hot breeze.\u00a0 Squinting through the dirty, slightly wavy glass pane, I saw the entire field\u2014and it was empty.\u00a0 No plane, no pilot, no people, nothing.\u00a0 Gone were the shiny red fire engines and the men in yellow rain coats.\u00a0 All gone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cDid they all leave while I was sleeping?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking at me with her soft deep brown eyes she said, \u201cTurn around here and take this aspirin and then I\u2019ll tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As I drank I saw her eyes narrow ever so slightly and the shadow of a smile slowly appear on her face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Epilogue:\u00a0 Dreams & Jerry<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n I<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Growing up as an only child for the first eight years of my life set the stage for my life and greatly influenced the eventual development of my adult personality.\u00a0 Certainly there were many other events, such as my early and disturbing experiences with religion, that helped mold me and shaped my outer being into who I would ultimately become, but I am convinced that the very core of my soul and persona was mainly formed in those early years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mostly, I was lonely.\u00a0 Dreams were my escape and in my dreams I ran away every day.\u00a0 But I was never alone.\u00a0 Jerry was my friend.\u00a0 In times of joy and in times of sorrow he would always be there for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n II<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My very first recollection of life was when I was about thirteen months old.\u00a0 I was in a crib, shirtless, shoeless, and in a diaper.\u00a0 I recall standing on the mattress holding on to the top of the crib\u2019s railing and looking out a window.\u00a0 I recall that I did that a lot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There was a light switch on the wall to the right of the window and I know I must\u2019ve spent hours flipping it up and down\u2014but I didn\u2019t know what it was.\u00a0 I think I flipped the switch mostly to hear the sharp clicking noise that sounded like the toy that my aunt had left in my crib.\u00a0 If you squeezed that toy very hard it would click.\u00a0 But squeezing it hard enough to make it click was really hard for me to do.\u00a0 But the switch on the wall was much easier, and it made the same sharp pleasing sound.\u00a0 Push up\u2014click!\u00a0 Pull down\u2014click!\u00a0 And it would make my mother come back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The window let me see when my mother went up the stairs and through the door into the white house.\u00a0 She would do that right after she went through our door to the outside.\u00a0 While she was gone I would click and click, then wait to see when she came out through the door of the white house and down the steps.\u00a0 Click!\u00a0 Click!\u00a0 Our door would open and my mother would come in.\u00a0 Sometimes her voice was very loud and I would be scared and start crying.\u00a0 She would make me lie down, say \u201cNe ne\u201d very loud, and make my bottom hurt.\u00a0 I would cry, then I would sleep.\u00a0 And Jerry, he would be there too, and he would cry with me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Other times, before I could move over to make the switch click, she would come in and make soft sounds and hold me.\u00a0 Those were the times I would feel very happy then I would get a warm drink from the heavy hard bottle. \u00a0I would sleep and dream and Jerry and I would laugh and play.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so it was for a long time.\u00a0 Anytime I felt joy and happiness, like when my mother would tell me we were going \u201cto town\u201d, I would shriek and call Jerry to announce that we were going somewhere to have fun.\u00a0 He would run up to me and stare me in the face, and say, \u201cNo you\u2019re not!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYes, Jerry we are!\u00a0 We\u2019re going on the bus to downtown and get a hot dog and a Coke, then we\u2019re going to a movie, Jerry\u2014a movie!\u00a0 How much fun will that be?\u00a0 And, you\u2019ll be here when I come home, right?\u00a0 And then I can tell you what I saw and how much fun it was.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I would look up to my mother to and point to Jerry and tell her he wanted to come too.\u00a0 She would laugh high and loud and hug me so hard it almost hurt.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAye que tonto, there is no Jerry.\u00a0 It\u2019s just us that\u2019s going downtown.\u00a0 Come on silly, let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I would always feel just a little ping of hurt in my chest as I realized that Jerry would not be coming again.\u00a0 He never came with us.\u00a0 He was always left behind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But then I would know that when I came home, stuffed to the gills with hot dog, popcorn and Milky Ways, he would always be there to greet me and to hear all about how grand the movie was, and how much fun it all was.\u00a0 And he would always say the same thing,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI missed you so, Frankie.\u00a0 I was really lonely\u2026but now you\u2019re home so let\u2019s play!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so it was for many child years.\u00a0 Just like that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And then one day, Jerry was gone and never came back.\u00a0 At first I don\u2019t think I missed him because I guess other things were now keeping me occupied.\u00a0 Not so silly things, but not so fun things.\u00a0 In retrospect I think it was not so much what I had found that had distracted me, but what I had lost.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember exactly when it actually happened, but Jerry knows the exact day that my innocence was lost; and on that day he left me forever.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n III<\/b><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n Only when I was much older and after many things, both good and bad, had happened in my life have I finally realized what dreams really are and what they have meant to me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I now understand that my dreams are fleetingly thin hopes and promises that have been hidden away from the light and life of my conscious mind.\u00a0 As a child my dreams were real things having substance and weight\u2014so much that I could close my eyes and literally feel their life surging into my being.\u00a0 But as the years passed and I began to experience the harsh realities of life with its many disappointments and painful lessons, those dreams began to fade from my conscious memory.\u00a0 Oh, sometimes late at night\u2014even now\u2014when my mind is one step away from total slumber shutdown I think I fleetingly see my wonderful friend, Jerry.\u00a0 There he sits still playing, wearing that unendingly mischievous smile with his twinkling eyes sweetly calling me back.\u00a0 But in that instant when the cover of sleep slides over me I know that we both understand I can never return to where we both once lived.\u00a0 His world, still full of dreams, innocence, truth and love, and made of pure light and uncorrupted joy, can never be violated by one who has ventured so far away and now lives in a self made world of dark memories and sad regrets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And so it is\u2014as I can never again enter Jerry\u2019s world of pure happiness of innocence, he can also never live in mine.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Field, the Plane, and War \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Prologue:\u00a0 The House on House Street \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Summers in Houston are always hot; but this particular year it just seemed hotter than usual.\u00a0 The sun, rising in a slow, lazy, almost vertical arch, would try its best to burn away the sticky and rancid … Continue reading Some Musings of Times Past and Love Lost<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}