The Old Home Place
I'd like to go back to where
I was born
on a cold and gloomy
November
morn.
Of course, I don't remember
my birth on the day
I landed on
Mother
earth.
But my dear mother said
at a family reunion
ten years ago
that I was the ugliest
baby she ever
had,
and then she quoted my
dad
who boldly said,
"Thanks for a boy, but was
that the best that
you could
do?"
In front of six sisters
and a
brother,
thus said my darling
mother!
Now, isn't that enough to
warp one's
personality,
when face to face with
reality?
I may never get over that
ordeal,
at least that's the way I
feel!
It would be fun to see the
trails that I use to run,
barefoot in the
Summer
sun.
Born on a section of land;
that's six hundred forty
acres to
explore;
houses, barns, lakes
and streams
in fulfilling a young boy's
dreams!
I'd like to sit beneath the mighty
oak
where I use to play
and throw acorns
every day,
and the cold-running
stream
where a boy could
dream
of catching a big
trout
that was swimming
about
in the clear, cold water;
life giving pure ,clean ,water
flowing from a
man-made lake!
Those were the days
in the shade of
yesterday,
when life was care-free
with not a worry
bothering
me.
Now that I am old and
in my gray,
I'd like to go back to
yesterday!
The hills that I use to climb
look so very small
today;
how could that be when
they were so high
when I was a boy at play?
But I seem to forget
that was
yesterday!
Yes, yesterday, when I was
young
with no aches and pains,
just a barefoot boy
playing in the rain!
I seem to forget that boys
grow up
like big dogs do from
when they were
a pup,
and the world keeps on
turning,
and wars must be won
for Freedom cries
out loud for
young men to grab a gun,
or to sail a ship,
or to fly a plane
in God's blue
sky,
to fight and to kill
and learn how to
die,
and if not to die to come home
again and sit under the
giant oak,
or on the bank of a cold-running
stream
with The Mares of the Night
punctuating an old veteran's
dream!
C. Douglas Caffey
of the Army Air Corps
509th
World War II
