Time Flying Read Free Page B

were make out of barrels. My barrel chairs were actually part of a set that included a bar and bar stools, but only the chairs made the trip west, then elsewhere with me (until my wife made me give them away as a condition of marriage — they were truly hideous). The rest of the grouping stayed in Indiana. When I walked down those stairs, I learned the bar and barstools had remained in exactly the same place we had left them. Seeing them gave me a momentary, hint of vertigo.
    For a second, 30 years hadn’t passed at all, but the feeling only lasted a couple seconds and just as quickly, I was back to the present. It was very odd.
    A short time later, I made my goodbyes, getting assurances from my new friends, who promised to get in touch if they ever decided to sell the cottage. I’m not sure why, since there’s no way in hell my wife would ever consent to moving there with our daughter, but I asked anyway. An interesting, if slightly disturbing, experience out of the way, I continued west, next stop, Belton, Indiana.
     
    In the years just after the Great Depression, Belton was a reasonably prosperous place to be. Home to a clay tile factory and surrounded by rich farmland, before World War II Belton had about 1,000 residents, 12 grades of public education and its own high school, Belton High School. It was every small town from the movies of the time. Depending on your perspective, a large Hickory (the town in Hoosiers) or a small Bedford Falls (the town in It’s a Wonderful Life).
    I drove down the main street in Belton, and had the oddest feeling I could almost see my grandparents and great-grandparents going about their lives, walking into the post office, standing on the sidewalk talking,  in this now mostly dead town. I passed the vacant lot with the remnants of a house burned down decades before I ever visited, the fireplace and a few bits of concrete still visible. I used to play with my cousins around the ruin, 35 years ago when we’d all come from Indianapolis to the old family hometown for the weekend.
    One of the Harper houses slid by my passenger window, then a left turn and I drove to my great-grandmother Margaret’s home. My grandfather, Harrison “Harry” Girrard was born in another house, still standing today, still solid and sturdy looking, though no one’s lived in it for years. Remarkably, Margaret’s place is still quietly occupying the ground it has for well over a hundred years now, looking like it was built after World War II, even though the foundation was dug long before Japan even began to think about attacking Pearl Harbor. I peeked in the window, past the real estate “for sale” sign and was surprised to see a large woven rug I remember from my youth in the middle of the living room. After a few minutes and a handful of pictures, I got back into the car and drove to my father’s boyhood home.
    The brick, one story house my father grew up in was one of the nicer on a block that consisted of only two other residences and a restaurant that had closed long ago. A tree Dad told me they planted when he was a boy towered stately and mature in the front yard,  reaching over the top of the structure.
    I pulled up to the curb opposite the front door, seeing three people sitting on the porch, a man, his back to me, and two women. The three, none younger than 60,  were sitting around a table, covered with a flowery outdoor cloth. They watched me as I got out of my car and crossed the street toward them. I walked up the sidewalk and as I got closer to the house, noticed one of the women, whose gaze was the most direct of the two, was much older than the other. She was at least in her 80s, and probably older than 90. I said, “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but my father grew up in this house."
    "Richard?" Asked the older woman.
    "Yes."
    She smiled at my puzzled expression. "I have something for you," she said, and pointed at an object I couldn’t see, that was on the table in front of