Wednesday, October 23, 2024. 8:55 PM.
Walking the Unnamed Road
Yesterday, at about 4:55 PM, I set out to walk in Woonsocket. Eventually, I came to a place, a deserted little home in my childhood’s neighborhood. It’s boarded up now. I stopped and looked at it for a while. A very pretty girl in my first-grade class in 1958-’59 and her one-year-older brother lived in that house. My dad gave both of them a ride in our station wagon on our way to school with my older sister and me also in the car. In my twilight years now, I am so sorry they moved away after we completed first grade. I feel-in-my-heart that I would cry a million tears to see Eileen again – just as she was back then – 66 years ago – when we were 6-going-on 7 years old in 1958.
In that same neighborhood there is an old dirt road that leads to a pond. When I was a boy, someone told me that my dad’s mother’s brother drowned in that pond. I caught my very first fish – a small perch – in that pond when I was about 8 years old. He was only about 5 inches long; so, I put him back into the pond. After leaving the sight of Eileen and her brother Ronald’s Quonset hut house of many years ago, I began walking that dirt road with no name. It leads to Sylvester’s Pond. The road was covered with fallen leaves and branches from the trees. Often, I would step on a small branch, and it would turn up and touch my leg. And sometimes in the twilight I would see ahead of me a small animal race across the road. Without 20/20 vision I couldn’t tell if it was a squirrel or some other small animal. Eventually, I began seeing glimpses of Sylvester’s Pond through the branches of the trees on my left. Then I saw a fisherman at the water’s edge. Going on further, I noticed small clearings beside the water; and imagined one of them was the same clearing where I had fished and caught my first ever little perch. Then, I saw another fisherman at another place along the pond.
At the beginning of The Andy Griffith Show, Andy and his son, Opie, are seen walking along a wide-open dirt road with fishing poles. I always thought of Sylvester’s Pond whenever I saw them walking together in the introduction to that TV show.
On the last day of first grade – after getting home from school – I was standing alone on the sidewalk of Sweet Avenue – between my grandmother’s property and Mr. Sutherland’s property – just savoring the fact that this was the first day of summer vacation. And then I saw three little girls my age walking down Stanley Avenue together. One of them was Eileen. They crossed the street and walked directly toward me. I’m so sorry that this silent little boy with a heart of stone said not a word to them – not even a simple Hi. So, they also just silently continued down the street.
Sometimes, I visit the cemetery where my family members are buried in Woonsocket. And this year, I saw a tombstone in that cemetery with the same last name as Eileen and her brother Ronald. And the first name of that man buried there is Sylvestre. Wonder if Sylvester’s Pond is named after him.
According to my booklet “Names For Boys & Girls” the name Eileen means light.
Some heart seeds remain dormant for a very long time before they suddenly crack open and begin to sprout. Only God, Who is Love and Light and Spirit, can make anything grow.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” -John 1: 1-5. ESV Study Bible.
John 1-6:38 ESV.
John 1-6 ESV – The Word Became Flesh – In the – Bible Gateway
Matthew 13
Matthew 13 ESV – The Parable of the Sower – That same – Bible Gateway
Mark's Imaginings 