28 years ago on July 21st, I was 9 years old and experienced the finality of death for the very first time. There was a man, kid really, that showed up on our porch one day. He was maybe 18. His name was Billy Runner. He was a wanderer and traveler. He was looking for family. He found us. We were 3rd or 4th or 6th cousins.......who knows, but we were family. I have vivid, powerful memories of him. He had long dirty blonde curly hair. His wardrobe every single day consisted of a greasy pair of jeans and a dirty white tshirt. He seldom wore the shirt that summer. He did however throw it across his shoulder and carry it everywhere he went. Cause sometimes a shirt was required.....to run into the minit mart or to enter my mommas house! He always had a Dr. Pepper in his hand. I dont just mean that he liked Dr. Pepper. I mean he literally had one in his hand at all times like a smoker carries cigarettes. If you met him on the street, you would certainly look the other way, redirect your attention, tell your children to not get too close. I think of the Merle Haggard song title, Mama Tried cause our momma certainly tried......tried to keep us 3 girls from running out to meet him everyday, from climbing into his lap, from crawling all over him......as a mom myself now, I get it. He was harmless but boy was he always so dirty. We absolutely adored that man. His passion was cars. Not nice fancy cars but old clunkers. He and daddy spent countless hours beating, banging and welding these old cars for competing in demolition derbys. We thought it was the coolest thing that he always left a place on the car to write our names.....Debbie, Donna, Teresa. Daddy laughs and said the most they ever won in the demos was $32. And they had to split that. I think every kid remembers learning to ride a bike for the first time. I remember the bike.....small, red, solid metal.....it had been Debbies and as things went growing up, it would be Teresas after me. Billy spent a hot summer morning in our front yard teaching me to ride that bike when I was 5 or 6 years old. He would hold it steady and would run along beside me till I got going and then turn me loose. Several times I fell into that hard, dry crunchy grass until finally I got it!! He grinned ear to ear, that big smile showing his stained teeth. A game sure to make us squeal with delight was when he would flip us. We would stand in front of him holding his dirty hands and literally climb up him. About half way up he would flip us through his arms and we would land on our bare feet and scream do it again! There was no time limit to this game. I am sure it ended mostly with momma saying You girls go on and leave him alone. He has things to do. I am sure also that this loosely translated to For the love of Pete! He is filthy! Why must you girls insist on being all over him!? LOL! One day as he left our house, he tossed a Dr. Pepper bottle out of his window. This infuriated my dad. You just dont do that. Its disrespectful. Daddy could have picked it up and thrown it away. Instead he hung it on a tree limb next to the driveway near its discarded spot and said when Billy comes back, hes going to get that bottle and throw it away. Billy never came back. He was killed the next day. Against my dads advice, he attempted to pull a truck with no brakes with a tractor. As he went down a small hill, the truck gained speed, couldnt be stopped, climbed up over the tractor and crushed Billy there in that tractor seat. It was his 21st birthday. Our phone rang.....The kind that was mounted on the kitchen wall with a short cord. The kind that insured everyone in the house could hear your conversation. The kind that offered no privacy. Its funny the things you remember. It bears no significance but for some reason to this day I vividly remember the song Meet me in Montana was on the mantle radio. Even at 9, I knew the tone of the conversation was strange. After daddy hung up the phone, he walked to his chair in the living room and called for us girls. We all gathered around or crawled up in his lap. This is the first time I remember seeing my daddy cry. The saddest part of this for me as I have gotten older is that there is not a single picture of this man. He left home young, he was a drifter. This was before we all had a camera readily available at our fingertips. Like the song says, back before everything became automatic. I would give my right arm for just one snapshot of him. I sometimes worry that I will forget what he looked like. For whatever reason, these memories are seared into my heart. I have trouble remembering birth dates, anniversaries, what I did last Tuesday, what I have to do tomorrow......but July 21st is a date I will always remember. Rest in peace Billy. Love you always ❤️
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 13:06:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015