Excerpt, Chapter 3, If we could see the wind

Nathe ratchets the vent so we can bleed off some altitude in preparation for our landing ahead. I return to the binoculars, wondering if I were viewing the land from The Turnip as my father might now, from some vantage I cannot imagine. Viewing spiritually, from a place where there are no dimensions or boundaries such as time. I shall wait and learn patience. Yet I know I will continue to lie awake at night, pondering:

Does he ever think of me?

Does he know of my sorrow?

*

Before she left for Nevada, Mom and I, family, friends, neighbors, and some of Vic’s group from Las Vegas, gathered for a memorial service at The Pillars. Dedicated were a flagpole, a shelter, and a bronze marker inscribed and secured to the most prominent spire. Benches were placed in the grove and around a stone fire pit where the embers of centuries of campfires warded off the chill and kept vigilance through the night. The day’s cheery fire snapped and popped while Nathe spoke at the ceremony. He recalled the many hours he and Blake spent sharing their boyhoods and exploring the wonders of Summers Run.

“On a sunny day like this, we’d wile away an hour or more watching the planes turning toward the airport. The bigger ones would lower their gear, feather the engines, landing lights switched on, port and starboard wing lights blinking red and green. Here’s where Blake caught his fever and came down with a condition that couldn’t be cured without getting behind the instrument panel and placing his hands on that yoke.

“As much as he loved this farm and this life, he had to leave ‘for a spell,’ as we say here in P. A., so he could return home to Summers Run and Shadeland for good, forever, and satisfied he’d seen and touched The Rooster.”

Nathe paused and regrouped and as a tear escaped his composure, he told us: “We knew them all. DC-3s, Convair 220s, Beech 18s, the Bonanzas, all the Pipers, the Cessnas, Ercoups, Stinsons. We knew them all. This is . . . sacred ground.”

After much deliberation and consulting with the family who warmly approved, my mother had the plaque inscribed: 

BLAKE’S WOOD

In Memory of

Blake David Kinkade

1948-1991

Look for Him in the Sunshine and the Shadows all around

for He is the Keeper of this Sacred Ground.

Read CHAPTER 3, The Boys of Summers Run at this link: The Boys of Summers Run