Читать книгу Flight of the Forgotten - Mark A. Vance - Страница 10

As I entered the old farmhouse and stared around the room, I remember feeling a little uneasy at just being there. This wasn’t like anything I was used to. It was a real working farm in Indiana, and my great-grandfather had just lectured me very sternly for not properly milking one of his cows. He wanted me to call him “grandpa” like I did my other grandpa, but I soon learned the difference between them that afternoon.

William H. Davis, my great-grandfather, was a man engrossed in the workings of his farm, a man with little patience for children or city-folks, and I happened to be both. He was also a man who’d lost his son Buster in the war and who had lived through unimaginable heartache because of it. None of that was apparent or mattered to me at the time, of course. I was just a bungling child, incapable of performing even the simplest task without his sharp correction. All I wanted to do was go home.

Entering the front room of the farmhouse, seeking reassurance from my mother, I remember stating quite matter-of-factly that I wanted to leave. In response, my great-grandmother intervened, trying to cheer me up as she took me by the hand and began showing me around her home. Her efforts were not immediately successful, but eventually my attention was drawn to a picture on her wall of several young men standing in front of a World War II bomber. The photograph looked a lot like my favorite television show, “12 o’clock high,” and I can still see the twinkle in her eye as she declared, “That’s Buster!” gesturing at the crew photo. There it was ... that name again. The name I’d heard my uncle call himself so many times before when he spoke to me.

“Buster.” I echoed.

“Your uncle.” my mother stated. “Your grandma’s brother.” as I just stared in awe at the crew photograph.

“I know, Buster. Where is he now, Mom?” I then asked innocently. “I can hear him, but I don’t see him.”

“What?” my mother replied with a start, taking me by the hand and leading me away from the picture.

“Where is he now?” I asked again, as my mother tried to ignore the question.

“He’s gone, honey.” my great-grandmother, Buster’s mother, finally answered, as the twinkle in her eye began to fade.

“Gone?” I reeled, sensing something was radically wrong. “But he talks to me all the time.”

“Oh, my!” my great-grandmother exclaimed as she stared at me for a moment in silence and then the twinkle in her eye slowly began to return.

“He’s really interested in airplanes. It’s like ‘12 o’clock high’ to him.” my mother offered nervously, trying to put my great-grandmother at ease. Smiling knowingly in response, my great-grandmother then leaned over and patted me on the head, gazing intently into my eyes.

“He talks to you?” she said cautiously, as I nodded innocently. “Is is he okay?”

“Yes. He says I’m going to be a jet pilot when I grow up.” I announced as my great-grandmother stared at me in wonder.

From that day on, my great-grandmother always treated me like I was someone special. There were even occasional comparisons to Buster himself, as if the two of us were kindred spirits and I somehow reminded her of him. Whenever that happened, I remember it made my great-grandmother smile, and that knowing smile is what I remember most about her.