Photo: Me, dog Bimbo, and brother Curtis. Banner photo of Curtis, left; Mom, center; Walt, right; and me center front, Curtis sports a ribbon prize for his participation in the Huntsville, Missouri Annual Horse Show.  

The Bony Years

I was skin and bones for a number of the first years of my life. I just didn't like to eat was my claim, but more likely there was little food to eat, add on to that a picky eater, and that equals, skin and bones, or tiny, and I do remember the bones poking out, but it seemed normal enough to me. My brother Walt and I were very picky eaters, but a hamburger was only a hamburger and dry bread, mustard as added later in life. By college time, I went to the local Dairy Queen in Eugene, Oregon and ordered a plain burger, just a bun and burger with mustard, and I paid the same amount as other students who got the works on theirs. So, I gulped and quickly learned to eat the work, but I soon was eating everything, anything, even raw fish. The whole world of taste was opened up for that once scrawny boy from the dead-end street, last house in town.

Curtis left and me right at about the age of 7 years old.

I was the second smallest boy in primary school. I climbed trees, hell I loved climbing them, and I loved doing dangerous things; I was immortal. I didn't learn fear until 9th grade, and yes some of us have to learn fear, too dumb to figure it out any other way. I loved life, I loved everything about it, and the more I explored the more in love I became. Once, in the 8th grade, a boy tried to bully me, but he was right in my face, and I never even flinched. He walked away saying, "Damn, you're the bravest boy I know." No, I wasn't brave, just too ignorant of fear.

I'm swinging the paddle, Curtis it the recipient of my posed swing, and in the back ground is my blood brother, Gary.

Cotton's world is like a nickel, which an impoverished mother places in the palm of her young son. He is overjoyed with his prize and, grasping the nickel tightly, hurries off to play.

A short time later, the little boy returns to his mother with tears in his eyes. He speaks haltingly, searching for enough breath to vocalize his words, "Mommy, I can't find my nickel!"

Comforting her son; the mother said, "I'll help you look for it. Where were you playing?

The two of them begin to search both high and low for the nickel. After a long search, to no avail, the mother sits down in a kitchen chair and lifts the boy up on her lap. Calming down, with his head on his mother's bosom, he sobs quietly and relaxes. As his mother's love soothes him, he looks down at his right hand, which slowly begins to open. In his hand, he sees the nickel pressed deeply into his palm, precisely where his mother had placed it earlier.

The nickel was so cherished by Cotton it became a part of him. It was no longer a nickel but a living breathing component of his being, so it was with the world. To Cotton the world didn't exist out there somewhere but it existed in him. What is life but a collection of memories or recollections of moments past, which exist only in the thoughts of those who remember? It occurred to me that if I did not write these adventures down on paper, they would be lost forever.

The parable of "The Lost Nickel" was written in 1993 for a post-graduate class in parables from Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, at the Rickman Center's satellite branch, Jefferson City, Missouri.