Writing My Truth

My sister and I grew up with a single mother. She worked as a cocktail waitress, which meant that she wasn’t home most nights.

When our mother was working, my sister and I would stay with an older couple at their home well outside of town. He was roughly twenty years older, but she seemed to me to have the older soul. They were about 180-degrees opposite in terms of their personality.

All these years later they still hold a place in my memory, especially him. I’ve tried to write about him before. This time, I succeeded.

Old Jack Penguilley

Old Jack Penguilley
Was older than dirt when I met him
He kept to himself and he never said much
But I know that I’ll never forget him

He took a boy who was scared in his bones
And made him feel that he wasn’t alone
Showed him some kindness
When kindness seemed hard to find

He must have been 80
The first time we came face to face
He had a gentleness there in his soul
Time nor hardship could ever erase

He made me feel I had something to give
When I wasn’t sure that I wanted to live
Helped me to still all the demons
Loose in my mind

His wife was younger
With a hardness that he never had
Unforgiving, the desert dried up her heart
Took the good, leaving only the bad

Short with her love but quick with the rod
Puritan-like with the fear of her god
In her eyes, I wasn’t young
I simply was blind

So many years have passed by
Water gone under the bridge
Yet I can see them as if it was still yesterday

Old Jack Penguilley
Found joy in being alive
He had an old Studebaker he loved
But his wife would not let him drive

I think that he would take trips in his mind
Leaving the frailties of his age behind
Imagination sometimes
Can be much more kind

Old Jack Penguilley
Was older that dirt when I met him

© 2017 Walt Huntsman. All rights reserved.