Net Miles Of Smiles

By Bob Perks

Don’t tell me you can’t go home.

I just came back from there.

My phone rang early last Saturday morning.

“Hey, did you see in the paper that 466 is
having a house sale?” my brother asked.

“No, are they really?”

“Yes.  I think we’re going down later just
walk through it.”

466 is the house number of the home we lived
in when I was growing up.  I lived in a
community that always stayed close to where
you were born.  Families rarely moved away
back then.  That is until the kids graduated
high school.  Then it appears that most
of my class mates left the area.

So, many of the old homesteads were left
with parents growing old and children
returning during holidays and funerals.

“Well, if you go, let me know what it looks
like,” I said.

Then it played in my mind.  It must have been
that I hadn’t had my coffee when he called.

“How could I pass up a chance to see it again?”
I said to my wife.  “Let’s go!”

I was actually nervous.  On my way there my mind
replayed a thousand memories.  Then, when we pulled
up, I began to shake.

I am a man whose emotions lie barely below the
surface.  I am a writer and a speaker and still
I can’t capture in words the real feelings of the
moment when I stepped foot just inside the door.

I was home.

Introducing myself to the present owner, I put my
hand out and said, “Hello.  I am Bob Perks.  I
used to live here.”

He kept his arms crossed in front and didn’t respond.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

I continued nervously telling my story.  He finally warmed up when he realized I valued it as much as he did.  He lived there 21 years.
 

I called my brother to tell him where I was.  Then
the man actually closed the front door and took us
upstairs.  My room.  My parents room.   The attic
where I played.

It was there a real life changing moment occurred.
I happened to mention that I plastered the walls
in the small attic room with Beatles pictures.

“Did you have a photo album where you kept them, too?”
he asked.

“Yes!”

“I found it.  It’s downstairs.  We were going to sell
it on Ebay.”

I hurried down to see if it really was mine.

“Who’s Bobby?” he asked.  I responded like a little
kid waiting for Santa to hand out gifts.

“That’s me!”

There it was. One of those old photo albums with
the black construction paper bound by a laced shoe
string.

“What’s it worth to you?”

He was selling his stuff.  But this was mine stuff.

“Priceless!” my wife responded.

“Here, take it,” he said.

Nothing could match this moment better than seeing
my brother arrive.

He immediately walked in and stood in the second room
right near the kitchen door.  I knew what he was doing.
He turned and said to the man, “My mother died right here.
I held her hand when she died.”

I was there with him and Dad that day, that moment but

declaring his place there that day was important to him today.  He adored her.

Later I stood in the kitchen with him and in another
moment I will treasure the rest of my life, I turned
to him and said, “I would never in a million years think
that you and I would be standing here again.  Me 59,
you 69.”

Oh, God thank you.  Thank you for big memories in
small moments.  And thank you for keeping my brother

and I around so that we could “go home again.” 

“I wish you enough!”

Bob Perks

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