J. Michael Dew

When my girls rides their bikes, they get suited up pretty well: pants, long-sleeve shirts, and helmet.  They are prepared for what might befall them as they cruise and wind around our cul-de-sac.  I think about how the adults of my youth would sometimes holler, "Get into the back of the truck!" and how we kids would be thrilled at the prospect of a hot summer's wind blowing through our young hair.  Is it sad that my kids may never hear that call to adventure?  I wonder.  Perhaps so.

I remember my grampa cutting kindling in the woodshed out behind my grandparents' little red-trimmed house on York Hill.  He would be out there for hours, never mind the dark, the cold, the solitude. Perhaps it was because of these things that he lingered until the cooling embers of the hearth could quietly summon him back inside so that they could be stoked and fed another log or two.  He was a man who kept to himself -- one who never insinuated himself into the affairs of others.  I can sill hear the soft crunch of icy snow beneath his booted feet.