Sord in Prosperity - Hope Beyond the Apocalypse

EP. 148 - FROZEN

THAT WAS ONE BRIEF recollection of my elementary school and forest that surrounded it. More than anything, the forest was the magical place for all the fun and trouble kids could imagine.

The wind was always blowing at the tree tops. If you've ever heard the wind through the pines, Ponderosas in this case, nothing else on Earth makes that sound. At once it is both a comforting familiarity and a constant reminder of danger. That same wind can be warm during the day but bring snow that night.

"Where's Colt?" my mother inquired.

Having fallen asleep hours before, I peered up at her, squinting at the two overhead bulbs burning brightly through the thin, frosted ceiling shade. My head spun sideways to my brother's empty bed. Mom had thrown back the covers, exposing his pillow and bunched-up clothes in a classic kid's attempt to emulate a sleeping body. It was not the first time she encountered such trickery.

I had no idea. "Bathroom, maybe?" I grumbled.

"No, he's not there either, and he's not in the other bedrooms."

I peered at the closet with some hesitancy. He may have been hiding there, assuming he could find any room in that mess. However, entering the closet would have required chucking onto the bedroom floor an assortment of board games, jackets, and snow boots that normally inhabited its dark recesses.

And inhabited the closet was, in my young mind. The two doors barely held back the avalanche of belongings inside. They were comprised of the cheapest lightweight wood available, veneered in even cheaper wood that was rich with knotholes. And after dark, those ominous, round spots became as sinister as one might imagine.

Two of them equal in size were paired beside each other, and anyone at a moment's glance could easily discern the outline of an angry owl starting at you. I often wondered, 'How could any adult have placed such a terrifying section of wood at the foot of a kid's bed, except to be intentionally mean?' Even my friends didn't like the owl, and they backed away whenever I opened the closet door, suspecting something dark and foreboding would emerge.

Worse yet, the closet doors hung onto their rails like sheets flapping on a clothesline in the wind. They perennially veered off track, often wickedly flying outward from the bottom when closing and injuring my shins dozens of times. In her frantic search for Colt, my mom had left a closet door open, and my gut turned at such a baleful sign.

Earlier that evening, Colt had gotten into trouble once again with our parents, a result of hiding his sister's doll clothes in some senseless argument with his sibling. After a long string of these near daily perturbations, my parents had heard enough of his denials and, for punishment, sent him to bed at my earlier bedtime hour.

But when you're nine and the male alpha dog, being forced to go to bed at the same time as your seven-year-old brother is the ultimate ignominy. In a sign of his anger, Colt didn't even want to listen to the radio, an old 1940s, tube-burning Philco console. We both loved and appreciated that console for what it brought us, including the Cassius Clay fight with Sonny Liston.

That first fight was 1964, but this was two years' prior to that event. It was November, 1962, and snow had fallen regularly in town since September. Our forest floor, typically sheltered by the pines from getting too much deep snow, had just been blanketed with two additional feet of fresh powder.

We exerted substantial effort and energy to trudge through that muck to our elementary school, even though it was only a few hundred yards away. One leg high up, and crunch. Then the next leg. And on and on until the usual five minute walk took fifteen arduous, sweat-laced minutes.

Due to the heavy snow, the two-lane behind the house was closed for the night until the plows could come by to allow school buses to run. Nobody in their right mind would have considered leaving their house that night unless they were in a high-clearance vehicle with chains.