A Passage Back by Chuck Walsh

Chapter One

I often seek comfort in the recollections of my youth.

And in those remembrances, I run the streets of time, into a familiarity as warm as sunbeams on a young boy's shoulders. It's not into the physical world I run but, rather, the deep corners of my mind, where memories exist in a separate world altogether.

Not too long ago, those roads were actual streets. I simply had to open my eyes and ears and experience what would one day become the memories I now seek. In that era, submerged in a world of endless summer days and warm autumn nights, I was surely going to live forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least a couple centuries. For, in those days, the baseball field was the land of eternal youth, the backyard held endless possibilities of childhood fantasy, and the smell of chicken frying, along with the buttery aroma of yeast rolls baking, ensured Mom would always take care of me. It was these things that made childhood more a state of being, frozen by time. Or it sure seemed that way.

But the endless summer days have long faded, slipping quietly by like a fallen leaf in a swift stream. Because of my inability to concede that youth was gone, I found myself waist deep in the metaphysical river of life, trying to slow time with my bare hands. Sadly, it slipped through my fingers like a raging river, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn't turn around, couldn't go back. Ever.

And so I began to hold childhood memories close in my mind, and even closer in my heart. Nostalgia became an endearing friend, and all things past held a tender spot in my life. Simply watching Mom and Dad in their den watching television brought comfort. The morning alarm stirred my thoughts to days when I lay in the warmth and comfort under my blankets in those quiet, predawn hours before school. The aroma of eggs and bacon bubbling in the skillet reminded me of breakfast in the kitchen with my brothers, jockeying for position by the space heater. My shaving razor sparked the recollection of Dad standing at the sink in our small bathroom, getting ready for work, in pajama pants and a white tank-top undershirt. The crisp smell of linen reminded me of Mom washing and folding clothes on our back porch.

I guess I was supposed to just sit back and take it like a man. I thought of Dylan Thomas' plea, 'do not go qentle into that goodnight,' and it became my mantra. I'd decided I was going down kicking and screaming. I didn't want to be thought of as old. I didn't want to turn gray. I wanted to ride my bike down the streets of childhood again, surrounded by familiar faces, the sun on my shoulders, yelling to the world that time had lost its grip on me.

I didn't want to be the guy sitting in the bleachers watching baseball players half my age playing the game I was born to play. I wanted to put on my uniform, walk to the pitcher's mound, stare down the batter, and strike him out. Instead, I threw batting practice to kids thirty years younger than me, trying to transfer the knowledge of my baseball days to someone who surely didn't appreciate the sport the way I did.

Middle age stood at my door, ready to administer a dose of reality without giving me the option to refuse the medicine.

I began to notice the passage of time in subtle ways, in many places. I saw it in the mirror and in the fine lines forming along the corner of my eyes. I heard it in the airwaves, when songs from my high school days played on the 'oldies''station. I felt it in the irreverence shown to landmarks and places that were once part of my childhood. All around me were signs that youth had slipped away, where every strand that linked me to my childhood was fraying, ready to snap at any moment.

The two constants that remained in my life, those strands that linked me to my past, were my parents and my boyhood home. Whenever I wanted to return to the comfort of younger days, I'd recline on Mom and Dad's couch and sip on a glass of sweet tea. It was no different than when I was a child.