There is an old broken down house on the south side of Calhoun county. There are those that would say it is an eyesore and perhaps it is to many, but to Fred Parsons it has a special meaning. It was there that his great grandparents had grown up and raised his grandparents whom had raised his parents who lived there until the house became too hard to maintain and they moved to town. When Fred was young he used to play in the old house and had spent many hours as a teenager "entertaining" girls there.

When you look at the house you see broken windows and a porch that is falling down. You don't see the love that was so very real or the time that Great-grandmother gave birth to his grandmother and grandfather there. The old bed is gone, turned to rust by now but if you look real close you can see his great-grandfather holding his new son and daughter in his arms as tears of joy rolled down his cheeks. The kitchen is empty now but if you look close there you will see the many years that it was filled with the smells of home cooking and the feeling of love.

The living room is empty of its couch and the chair that Fred's grandfather liked to rock his mother in when she was a baby. The times his grandfather held his breath as his mother had brought home a boy to visit whit them hoping that this was not "the one' that was going to take her away from him.

All too soon those we give birth to grow up and life returns to its cycle of getting married and having children and Grandfather was just not ready when his daughter brought home Fred's father and he asked for her hand in marriage. Was it just yesterday she had been swinging in the back yard on the tire swing that still hangs on a tattered rope there?

It was there that her parents had received the word that their only son had died in Inchon and they wondered how life would go on and then realized that many parents and wives had also received the same news.  After all it was supposed to be a war that ended all wars, was it not?

It was this house his great-grandfather and grandfather had returned to after a hard day at the mill and been greeted with a hug and a hot meal. It was this house once so full of love he could feel it when he came here to play and just sit on the front porch and think.

As it was, time goes on and the house outlived its usefulness and was left to its own devices.

To many that pass by it is just an old house falling down on the south side of Calhoun County.

 © Copyright 2005 by Tina L. Rice