Summary:\u00a0 A long-lost son contemplates returning home.
\nRating:\u00a0 G\u00a0 (2,450 words)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDay after day, day after day, Upon a painted ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Road that Leads Me Home<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This verse of Coleridge\u2019s poem had never seemed more apt.\u00a0\u00a0 I close the book of poetry I have been reading and watch the horizon.\u00a0 Why I do not know, for there was nothing to see except endless miles of the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The sun has barely risen but I will not leave my post until I see my goal. I reflect on the contradiction of the concept of time; when we wish it to pass slowly it flies by, when we are anxious for it to advance, it hangs heavy.\u00a0 The captain assures me that we are within a day of San Francisco, if the wind is favorable. Indeed, any wind would be favorable right now, but there is not a breath.<\/p>\n One more day of sailing, a day and a half on board a paddle steamer to Sacramento and a day on a fast horse home.\u00a0 Or should I take the train and then a horse from Reno?\u00a0 Which would be quicker?\u00a0 I fish in my shirt pocket for my brother\u2019s letter, a letter which has followed me around the world, finally catching up with me in Australia.\u00a0 Would it matter?\u00a0 Was I already too late!<\/p>\n I open the grubby envelope and read the stark words for the hundredth time:\u00a0 Pa is sick, he is asking for you.\u00a0 Paul says you should come home.\u00a0 <\/em>There was more but those few words said it all.\u00a0 It seemed a lifetime ago that I had left Nevada to travel and see the world.\u00a0 My restless soul had needed something more than the routine of running a ranch.\u00a0 No, make that helping to run a ranch and thereby was the rub.\u00a0 I was never my own man.\u00a0 I was always in the shadow of my invincible father, or so it seemed.\u00a0 I was one quarter of a whole, sharing the responsibility with my father and brothers.\u00a0 At best I was second-in-command, my decisions questioned, my work checked.\u00a0 I wanted to be the King, not the Prince.\u00a0 Looking back, I can see it was not as bad as I painted it.\u00a0 My father rarely challenged by decisions; he trusted me, but at the time I felt repressed and unfulfilled.<\/p>\n When I expressed my wish to leave, to travel, to find myself, to make it on my own, he cautioned me to think it through but he never once tried to tell me I was wrong or foolhardy.\u00a0 As he had always done throughout my thirty-five years, he gave advice and allowed me to make my own decision.\u00a0 All three Cartwright sons learned from Pa\u2019s wisdom if they took the time to listen, and from their own mistakes if they didn\u2019t, and, boy, did we make some.<\/p>\n So I traveled.\u00a0 I have seen many countries and met many new people.\u00a0 I have worked in a variety of jobs with varying success.\u00a0 At times I have been happy and fulfilled, but there have been as many times when I have been depressed and disillusioned.\u00a0 I would not change my decision with hindsight but I know now that wherever I have been and whatever I have done there has always been a missing ingredient.\u00a0 Happiness is only perfect when you have someone to share it and depression can only be lifted when there is someone who cares.\u00a0 For the first thirty-five years of my life that someone was my father.<\/p>\n I draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them as I stare out to sea.\u00a0 I was born by the sea.\u00a0 My father and grandfather were sailors. It is in my blood.\u00a0 Maybe that is why I am never satisfied if I stay in one place for too long.\u00a0 The first eight years of my life were spent traveling, but on land.\u00a0 My first memory is of a cramped wagon swaying as it trundled along a dusty road. My father driving the horse with one hand and holding on to me with the other so that I don\u2019t fall.\u00a0 I feel safe and secure.\u00a0 I remember being alone and afraid when he left me to work, sometimes on farms and once in what I now know to be the Pennsylvania coal mines but to a frightened four-year-old it was a place of darkness and danger.<\/p>\n My fear of losing my father never diminished, in fact it increased with every loss I suffered.\u00a0 I kept those fears to myself, as I learned to do with all my feelings.\u00a0 My father went without food so that I could eat; he worked his fingers to the bone so that I would have clothes to wear and a roof, or at least a wagon canvas, over my head. He did not need the irrational fears and insignificant illnesses of a small boy to worry him.\u00a0 I learned to stand alone, or thought I did.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m wiser and I know that I was never alone, he was always there for me.<\/p>\n My brother Hoss came along and for a time we were a family and my fears abated a little until I suffered another loss.\u00a0 My father taught me not to fear or hate the Indians because of the manner of her death.\u00a0 He taught me that one should not condemn a whole race for the deeds of a few.\u00a0 He saw the best in all men. I\u2019m not sure I ever fully learned that lesson.\u00a0 Sometimes, I still find it hard to forgive.\u00a0 My brother Hoss learned it well; I have never met a man who cares for his fellows or indeed for any of God\u2019s creatures as he does.<\/p>\n I feel a breeze on my cheek; the sails, which previously hung limp and lifeless, are filling slowly.\u00a0 We are moving a step nearer to home.\u00a0 Home\u2026 the place we found in Nevada; that beautiful lake and those magnificent trees.\u00a0 We knew the moment we saw it that nothing would ever compare and although my travels have taken me to some wondrous places none approaches the beauty of home.<\/p>\n I remember the fun we had as children, hunting, fishing, riding, and wild and free.\u00a0 Well, as free as Pa and our chores would allow.\u00a0 Sometimes he would join us, but he never let us forget our duties.\u00a0 We were taught early that hard work never hurt anyone and even when the ranch became successful enough to employ a large number of men, we were always expected to do our share.<\/p>\n My brothers are still there doing their share of the work and now shouldering this latest burden.\u00a0 Did I run away from responsibility or did I run toward my future?\u00a0 I have never been really sure.\u00a0 All I know is that I need to be there now.\u00a0 The person I love more than any other may be dying and I am not there to support him when he needs me most.\u00a0 He gave me unconditional love; a love that I tested more than once and it never came up wanting.<\/p>\n I remember my stepmother, Marie, and how my jealousy caused so much pain.\u00a0 First the jealous feelings of a child whose father loves another, an interloper, came between us when we needed no one else.\u00a0 Then a different kind of jealousy as, in my adolescence, I fell in love with her beauty just as he had done and resented his presence.\u00a0 How well I recall those strange feelings as I changed from boy to man and her understanding as she saw how I felt.\u00a0 I recall the moment we finally became a family of five, because my youngest brother was born. I loved him from the first time I saw him, so small and vulnerable. He brought an unquenchable spirit into the family.\u00a0 Joe knows how to live life to the fullest.\u00a0 How I\u2019ve wished at times that I was more like him, able to shake off my cares and relax.\u00a0 He tried to teach me and maybe I learned too well.\u00a0 I took off to follow my own dreams and left him with the responsibility.\u00a0 I know from Pa\u2019s letters that he grew into that role, the strength he had once I was no longer there to diminish it.<\/p>\n And Marie\u2026 how short was that time before she was taken from us.\u00a0 I remember my sorrow and frustration at her death and my father\u2019s inability to cope.\u00a0 My strong father, no longer the rock I leaned upon.\u00a0 How hurt he was and how impotent I was to assuage that hurt.\u00a0 The only time in my life when he was not there for me and I could repay him with my support.<\/p>\n Is it that way now?\u00a0 Does he look for my face, listen for my voice?\u00a0 I have failed him.\u00a0 I am not there in this darkest hour.\u00a0 My brothers are with him and yet he asks for me. Does he search for his eldest son and feel disappointed?\u00a0 Please let me look upon his face just once more, let me hear his voice say my name.<\/p>\n There is a smudge of gray in the distance, a faint line on the horizon.\u00a0 Is it a cloud, or is it land?\u00a0 The land of my birth, my homeland.\u00a0 I stand and watch that distant smudge as it grows darker and takes shape.\u00a0 Soon the hills are clearer and beyond them mountains, or is that my imagination playing tricks?\u00a0 Am I seeing the snow-capped mountains of my youth with my eyes or in my head? Mountains I\u2019ve climbed, roads I have traveled, people who mean so much to me, more than I knew when I left them so long ago.<\/p>\n The land grows clearer for a while then a sea mist begins to roll over us and we are enveloped in fog.\u00a0 The ship sounds its foghorn, a mournful sound echoing back at us as we glide silently toward safe harbor.\u00a0 Is that sound an omen of things to come?\u00a0 At the end of my journey will I be mourning the loss of a father and a friend?<\/p>\n I\u2019m still in pensive mood as I disembark and arrange for my luggage to be sent on by the next available carrier.\u00a0 With only a carpetbag in my hand, I hurry through the darkening streets to the nearest livery stable to hire or buy a horse.\u00a0 I settle for buying; who knows when I will return?\u00a0 The sorrel mare reminds me a little of my old mount, Beauty, and I wonder if she is still living out her time in the pasture.\u00a0 Everything ages and life moves on.\u00a0 I doubt I will recognize many of the people and places from my past.<\/p>\n It is only after I have traveled outside the city and the darkness has closed around me that I realize I have no supplies and only the canteen of water supplied by the livery.\u00a0 I am not accustomed to being away from stores or fresh water.\u00a0 The knowledge that I have become a city dweller hits me hard.\u00a0 For the next few miles I slowly try to adjust my mind and my senses to this hostile environment, at least hostile to the man I am now.\u00a0 The man and boy that I was would know how to survive.\u00a0 My father taught me, as he taught me so many things, with love and discipline, example and patience.\u00a0 His words and teachings echo in my head and I am amazed at how quickly the skills of the trail come back to me. I push the horse hard but not so hard that she fails me.\u00a0 As dawn breaks I find water and game and after a few spectacular misses I manage to get my hunter\u2019s eye and an unwary rabbit is mine.<\/p>\n Breakfast is good.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t forgotten how to make a campfire nor do I forget to douse it and make it safe.\u00a0 I am maybe a day and a half from my destination.\u00a0 I have never been a very religious man, despite my father\u2019s teachings, but I offer up a prayer that he is waiting for me.\u00a0 I doze off in the saddle and almost fall. I am reminded of the times that my father reprimanded me for reading while riding.\u00a0 I laugh softly as I recall the times my brothers and I slept in the saddle after a raucous night in town, with the soberest one, usually Hoss, being guard for the other two.\u00a0 Pa never knew about that.\u00a0 Yes, I guess maybe he did.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much he missed even if he didn\u2019t always feel obliged to comment on it.<\/p>\n Stopping to rest the mare frustrates me but I have no other mount and if she founders then I will be afoot in the mountains and, even at this time of year, I know that is not a welcome prospect.\u00a0 Eventually, as the afternoon softens to evening, I reach the trail that leads down from the pass and below I catch a glimpse of that beautiful blue that tells me I am almost home.\u00a0 An hour passes and I am surprised to find that I have slowed my horse to a walk.\u00a0 Surely I should be hurrying.\u00a0 In less than a mile I will be able to see the house, my goal in sight.\u00a0 Still I tarry.\u00a0 I have traveled for a long time; the letter was sent many weeks before that.\u00a0 I do not want to face my fears.\u00a0 While I do not know, I can imagine he is still standing on the porch yelling orders.\u00a0 I can picture him as he was when I left, gray-haired, yes, but fit and healthy.<\/p>\n The house comes into view; it has not changed.\u00a0 Smoke from the kitchen chimney drifts on the evening breeze.\u00a0 The roses over the porch are closing up for night and the horses in the corral mill around a little at my approach.\u00a0 Near the barn I see my brother Hoss raise his head at the sound of hooves and my youngest brother Joe closes the corral gate and looks up at me.<\/p>\n The moment is at hand; I am not yet near enough to see their expressions and my fear grows until it overwhelms me.\u00a0 I cannot look and I ride the last few yards with my head down.\u00a0 I only know that whatever is ahead I will never leave this place again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inspired by the Hoyt Axton\u2019s song\u00a0 from \u2018Dead and Gone\u2019, which Adam and Howard sing together.\u00a0 This was the last episode Pernell Roberts filmed marking his departure, and with him the character of Adam, from the series.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary:\u00a0 A long-lost son contemplates returning home.
\nWe stuck, nor breath nor motion;
\nAs idle as a painted ship<\/p>\n
\nRating:\u00a0 G\u00a0 (2,450 words)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12436,"featured_media":41001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","wpcat-23-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Preserving-Their-Legacy.png?fit=732%2C477&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}