John

These stories of his younger days, I’ve heard them all before, but somehow they don’t sound so stale and boring anymore. These memories of small town teams, of playing country ball, of doughboys who went “over there” and lived to “bless ‘em all”, all seem to him like yesterday… a history he knows, of Model Tee’s, depression years and silent picture shows, of one room schools and butter churns and following a plow behind a team of stubborn mules; he still remembers how. I came to look him in the eye, to face our shaky past, to purge my bitter memories and make a peace at last. I came to shake his hand again and take my share of blame, but I grew up a bit too late… he can’t recall my name. ~ © 2001 By: W.D.Neighbors ~ [More:] ~ John ~ 10/27/01. This poem is about my father; John Ledford Neighbors; born March 1907 in Oklahoma with a talent for telling stories that was not always appreciated by his youngest son, and a memory like a colorfully illustrated history text book. This was written after my last visit with him. During the visit he talked, in great detail, with my son and I about a baseball game, in which he had played in a small Oklahoma town back in the 1920's. He remembered individual at bats, pitches, plays, players names etc. At the end of the story he said to me "I know you are a Neighbors boy, but what's your name?" Dad passed away in Dec 2001, just a couple months after my visit and not long after I wrote this. I used it as the "template" for another poem about the coincidence of Dad's passing and the (shortly thereafter) birth of his great grandson, Bailey Michael Neighbors. I like to think they passed each other, and smiled, at the door. I have posted that poem here in this blog (the ballad of John and Bailey)