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<\/a>fear is a childs greatest passion<\/p><\/div> There were many things that came flooding back to my depleted memory.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n In November 2010, Photos<\/strong> That Make You Think, cousin James Gill came back to me like a blurry forgotten dream. It might have been the very first of many Summer visits….but now I remember the dog tags and boots, the smell of his fathers popcorn in big brown bags. Dads rosebushes were still in full (first) bloom but the weeds around them needed pulling. The House with the Knife in the Window was every childs worse nightmare because once upon a forever my brother Glenn came home one day (running through the backyard one day) all excited about what he had seen (one day) … Continue reading
\nThe House with the Knife in the Window<\/strong> was every childs worse nightmare because once upon a forever my brother Glenn came home one day (running through the backyard one day) all excited about what he had seen (one day) We were all so very young so very innocent, so very hot in the yellow Summer sun. Glenns eyes were wider then the lies he was always known to tell as he got up on the stage (the redwood table where we hung out)on those hot Summer worthless days. We were lost in pure boredom, waiting for the fifth of July (when we walked the streets collecting unexploded fireworks) It was these unexploded fireworks that we slowly unrolled into a bowl, the sparkling gun powder, never wasting a grain. It was a preteens gold. Glenn said:
\n“There is a house with a knife in the window” he told us with those wide brown puppy dog eyes.
\nYeah so? But it wasn’t just ANY knife. It apparently was one of those knifes that you only see in a horror movie. (a dagger)<\/a> “Let’s go!” And it was time for an adventure.
\nThis was no ordinary run down the street and go see thing, this was an ADVENTURE. Pack the wagon with essentials ( rocks, tape, sticks, chlorine tablets from the pool binoculars and a fake gas can) kinda journey.
\nWhen you are small, like we were then, three child steps equals one adult step. THEREFORE we were traveling 3x further than we really wanted to go so one mile to the house with the knife in the window was really three. Harrison avenue was a very long road in the hot sunny days of the early 1970’s.
\n So like the Little Rascals camping trip, the gang, our gang, the sidestreet gang trudged toward mystery, fear and perhaps …….death.
\nWhat was it about the house with the knife in the window that made us stand there and stare.
\nWow. ooooohhh. Ahhhhhh. Oh my God, that surely is a big knife.
\nThe best of my memory says that the sidestreet gang made many pilgrimages to stand and stare at that knife in the window. We wondered why it was there. We imagined the murders it had committed but most of all we looked for signs of life inside the house.
\nThen it happened. One day the old woman that lived there came outside in fascination at our staring at her home. We all ran. When we came back days later the knife was gone and the window was down, because after all, that was all the knife was used for; holding up an old wooden window in the hottest days of Summer.
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\nYou only reminded me of Sandra Bullock<\/a> ten years after you gave me your last gift, a tree. The tree died in a terrible drought on my deck in the house I bought to raise a family.
\nAnd while watching<\/strong> Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood I finally realized all that my mother had been through. Giving painful birth ten times, cleaning up vomit and shit, the never-ending yelling and screaming. The sweat and tears. The endless cleaning and cooking. Did I think it just happened? This was your life Joan Dorothy Gill, unselfish and hard…..full of temptation, lust and heartache. Almost everyone died before you, your mother, father, husband, second daughter, two more husbands, your friends and most of your inlaws ABANDONED you when became a widow. A widow with ten children, a business, a manager with a thirst for embezzling, and you carried a yearning to escape ……. any which way that you could.
\nIn my daily early morning Frankenstein walk to the bathroom, the creaking old wood floors, my popping prostrate, the furnaces hissing my name, I realize the beauty of another day. The shortened frozen mornings of my fiftieth Winter, all I want to do is crawl back under the blankets and stretch my legs. All I want to do is escape from the deadlines and death of working to death. This is supposed to be a magical month. When Gregory, Glenn, Gary, Grant and I were younger forty years ago (in pajamas with feet) we counted the days and then hours until Christmas. We lay in bed and sang, crazy made-up songs and Christmas Carols. From the Sears Toy Catalog “wishbook” we picked out one “big thing” and “two small things” and this was UNnegotiable.
\nIn my chipped front teeth childhood, I dreamed of adult Christmas’ ; of sleeping late in blanket-covered beds by frosty windows. I am still afraid of change. It still happens all the time. So fast sometimes. So damn ruthless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"