Breakfast with Dad

Hi All! Just thought I'd pop by and tell you about a new adventure I have planned. As many of you already know, I have written a memoir based on my experience after my father gave me more than 400 pages of letters he wrote during WWII. Since he gave them to me about five years ago, we have met for breakfast every Wednesday to talk about them and the war and so forth.

Well- One of my computers is down and I have to take it to this guy who repairs them. He lives in a tiny town about 30 miles away. It happens to be the town that my father grew up in, the town where those letters were sent during the war. So I had a brainstorm. I asked Dad if he would want to come with me to drop the computer off and then have breakfast there. He agreed-he never turns down food! So tonight at my son's ballgame I told him I'd like to go by his old house too, so I can see it for myself. So that's what we are going to do. Who knows...maybe we'll knock on the door and get a tour! I am so excited.

As I am editing the book, I am finding that the way I picture (and write) things is not the way they were, so this will be great. I'm taking my camera too.

So anyway- Just wanted to share yet another step in the process.

Lavinia

We stopped in front of the house where my father's folks lived during the war. No one was home. I made my dad get out and pose for a picture in front of the house, mailbox in the background. It was a strange experience for me. I looked at the mailbox, the stairs going up to the covered porch and imagined my grandma sitting there waiting for the postman to bring one of my father's letters. She must have looked at the postmark and been relieved that at least on that date, he was still alive.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an experience is worth ten thousand. The house is not at all what I pictured. I knew that my grandmother (who died before I was born) had had a garden, so I pictured a large lot. But it was a tiny back yard. I pictured more of a farm but it definitely wasn't a farm. Actually the house looks curiously like the house I live in now.

I drove slow through town as he told me about each house and who used to live there. It was a trip down memory lane for him. It's funny that the town is so close to ours but we'd never made an intentional trip like this before.

All in all- a good day!

Lavinia

PS Rural-I commented in SYW and also sent you a PM