A recent thunderstorm reminded me of how I felt when I was little. It only rained at night, when it was dark, and the sky would light up brightly whenever lightning would strike the earth. The thunder was so loud it seemed as though it was inside the house. It never sprinkled, it always stormed violently and loudly. I always felt safe inside the house, and was always grateful I wasn’t outside where all the noise and danger seemed to be. Today, local news channels will have weather alerts for the same type of storms that were a normal part of my life as a child.
We used to have a rocking horse that was like no other I have ever seen. 
It may have been home made, or maybe it was just unusual. The horse portion had a flat seat and a cut out horse head, both made out of wood and painted red with white accents. There was a long green metal spring, like a leaf spring, connecting the horse to the base which was similar to a pedestal. The photo shows how it looked with a young me on top of it.
We had that horse for many many years. Recently, I asked my mother what became of it. She doesn’t know. Like so many things it has disappeared without any fanfare, without any record, slipping away into obscurity and leaving only a faint reminder of its presence in the memories of those who enjoyed it for a while.
My father could never afford a new car. Once, he bought a car that wasn’t too old and looked almost new. It was black, with a white roof. I don’t remember exactly which model it was, but it was a General Motors car I know for sure. My dad loved that car. He spent a lot of time washing, waxing and making sure the car looked beautiful, and it did.
One day, on the way home from work, as he approached an intersection, another car on the opposite road failed to stop at their stop sign. It was being driven by a young girl who may have not been familiar with the road and wasn’t aware of the stop sign. The collision threw my father out of the car and he landed in someone’s yard. This was long before seat belts were a common feature in cars. The beautiful black and white car that my father loved so much was destroyed. The girls in the other car were not seriously injured. My father spent a few days in the hospital. How many I don’t know, but I do remember going to visit him. In the 1950′s kids weren’t usually allowed as visitors in a hospital so we had to stay in the parking lot as my father waved from his window, several stories into the air.
After that, my father never showered too much attention on a car. He said he thought it was because he had let the car become too important in his life that perhaps, God took it away from him. I know God doesn’t like us to worship anything other than Him, so my father’s reasoning does have some credibility in my mind. When I got old enough to have my own cars I made sure I didn’t wash or wax them any more than was absolutely necessary. Laziness may have had something more to do with that than my father’s idea about why his car was destroyed, because even though I never idolized any car that I’ve owned, I did have one totally destroyed. But that’s a story for later.
