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A lifetime is filled with thoughts, and memories....wonder and amazement...for some it is constantly stricken with pain, and regret...others are dealt to burden the proof of someone elses decisions...yet life is always about living...moving forward...the hopes that I share....the regret which I don't.....all have a meaning.... only some with a purpose....

In the spring of 2005 I was building another race car...after only toying with what had become a hobby for the past 4 years I felt rejuvenated and finally felt the urges of picking up a career I had once given up for the life of my family......

My old sponsors who had driven by began to call as the car started to be recognizable....asking to join us once again...inquiring of my plans...asking me for lists of things I needed to complete my torrid project....In life I had learned not to trust, but wrote down every part number they had asked for...

Mr. Baker was not only my sponsor, but too my friend...spending time as I turned wrenches into the early morning hours....giving advice on life as well as teaching who he was...his own dreams had been spoken....he searched for mine...for 4 years we didn't speak...yet from the moment he called it was if we had never parted.....His ideas....his thoughts were easily read, yet shown to few

Two weeks had past since I saw him last, and I called his wife hoping to reach my friend....I was informed by a crying widow of how he was gone....his funeral had been the day before...He had been in a terrible car accident a week earlier while driving back from Arkansas with a van full of the parts I had asked for....broken she mumbled a warning as she immediately hung up her phone...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

The winter just a few short months before I was working 7 days a week...trying desperatly to gather any money I could find to help with the medical costs of my fathers illness...Being self employed there was no insurance to fall back on, and the specialists would not see him without either a policy, or cold hard cash...

I had driven our forklift throughout the feilds flipping cars onto their rooftops through the day while business was slow...coming back that evening to pull aluminum wheels...radiators and convertors that could be sold for more than scrap prices would pay....Time was not on our side, and the pace was fast....On his good days we would place heavy loads of our inventory of short and long iron on the trailers, and my father and our long time friend Bird would drive them into town to sell as scrap...

One particular load was especially heavy...taking more nerve throughout the process, and needing a hand to help direct the weight I had asked Bird to drive the lift while I muscled the parts of steel around equally....once we were done he climbed down and sat beside his trailer....taking a bottle from his pocket the 64 year old took a pill, and held onto his arm explaining he would be fine any minute...deciding to only take one trucks load into town he climbed in the passenger seat, and he and my father drove to sell our treasures...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

For years Bird had gone to the different race tracks with my father and I...We would cover a 3 state area throughout each season with several Tracks along the way...more experience..more surfaces..nothing could ever substitute laps being ran to help with development...

The stories that were told as I sat between both men for hours each week...Both denied their participation, but everytime we would pass through one small town called Copan...I would hear a cry out of "Copan Jane...came to town and gave all the young boys the clap"...followed by a laugh, and Birds explanation of love of how not to settle too early, but to play the field and go back to the one I liked the best later in life...The same story each time...which always ended as we pulled into the pit area of the track we were getting to...I would ask the same questions..hear the same answers...I could let him feel the topic, as I directed each sentence while he spoke his mind....

Whenever a new track would open we would follow after they had a chance to iron out the short comings..Bird had been to hundreds of races with us over the course of the years, yet we had all heard of a brand new facility unlike anything in this part of the country...when our home track had canceled because of the weather...I had spent all morning calling 4 states finding somewhere that was open and racing...the only place was the new track..so I modified the car for the size of the track with gearing and tires..loaded the car and we were off....

This trip was different because he and my father had never seen the place we were headed...I had driven by and tried to prepare them but until it was seen it was no use...When we arrive we each walked to the Pit Shack to pay our way in, and after signing all the documentation I looked around and Bird had vanished...Running late we pulled the truck and trailer in and parked in the first place we could find..and as I began to unstrap the car Bird had ran down excited, and scared...He began to ask me what they paid to win....begged me to leave the car on the trailer and he would pay me the winners purse....followed by "that thing is scary"....he had walked the hill and looked at the track...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

It was only at the start of this same season that at another track we use to run...one of the people we use to pit beside whenever we could had suffered a heart attack after climbing out of his car and passed away in the ambulance at the track.....A driver...but more importantly a father..husband..grandfather and Im sure more to different people was gone...

I had asked his family if I could change my number and race the following week as a dedication to my lost friend....A 1/4 mile clay oval measured on the outside racing was tight and always nerve racking...The new track we found ourselves at was completely different...3/8 of a mile on the inside and 1/2 outside...straightaways banked that likened that of a Nascar track with speeds into the corners reaching 120 mph in a dirt stock car.....

With the # 23s taped to the sides of my car we started 27th and was leading in less than 6 laps...began to lap cars within 8 laps and had only 2 cars finish on the same lap as our car when the 20 lap main event was over....without a clear eye within any amount of distance of my vision....the family rushed their mother....down to the car after the checkered flag had waved.....25 people grouped together forever frozen in time...always remembering the emotions of the day....the picture hangs on my wall still today...

Bird had spoken to our friends wife much of the night calming her emotions...clearing her thoughts...and as we all sat in the truck on the way back to the shop all that was spoken was she had passed something onto him, but he couldnt tell us without the timing of a perfect night.....

My father had reminded me of the conversation or lack there of from that night after he had returned with the last load he and Bird had taken that day..My father was beside himself....yet would not reveal what was said only that I would know soon....Bird had gone home, and soon called his neighbor who upon arriving at our pals house immediately called an ambulance...He had suffered a major heart attack and would spend the next 21 days in the ICU unit before leaving us....

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

Baker had been out and studied the car I was building...asking me questions about all the supsension, and why things had been placed or lengthened as I had began to alter and tune for my personal desired effect each peices roll....

My father already showing signs of his illness pulled Baker to the side attempting to explain his own goals, and asking him to look out in some way for me....knowing he would not be here to see this seasons end.....and something that struck me as strange....once their conversation had ended Baker returned to the car which I was still working on tearful yet quiet...."The old man told me a few things"....and that was the just of our last time speaking...

On the day we received the call that Bird was going to be taken off of the breathing machines he had so been depending on we shut down the business and quickly drove to be by his side...having not seen him since the day at the shop...my Dad and I along with my mother walked into the room to see him....swollen from fluid retention...gasping for each breath of life...my father reached for his hand...asking for his friend...finding no response...I stood there speechless...not as I wanted to remember ran back and forth through my mind....I turned away yet out of the corners of my eyes saw a bump race across the mans forehead....as I turned back to sure my vision...his eyes opened for an instant, but there was nothing behind them.....My hearts broken voice uttered to my father...Ill wait in the hall....

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

In a time span of less than 6 months I had lost friends and best friends....people who had always been there....some who had not...and still I was asked to watch my father as he made this same journey we had each grown to accept....

I watched him as he let go with everything he was emotionally attached to.....He had fallen inside of himself....it was just part of his process of letting go, and preparing himself to leave us....

On the night of his passing..What I saw is something I have never mentioned, and only do now because I think it should be known for whoever reads this and chooses to believe....I looked on in disbelief at the man I thought would never fade, and realizing his memory was now all I would ever hold....I saw something in the sheet that covered his now lifeless body. Almost snake like slithering up his arm I leaned over as if to pull the sheet over his head, and raised it as I did in one motion so I wouldnt startle anyone, so I wouldnt bring attentions to myself I saw something moving inside of him, and at first I felt hope, but quickly turned to fright as I watched something peak its way through a hole in his arm where an I.V. once rested....

The months leading up to his death...my father would call, and ask for help changing a light bulb he no longer had the strength to reach....only to ask me to sit and talk for hours after wards...He had essentially warned me that fighting was only to make things worse...more painful with far more torment when all you are doing is fighting against what can not be stopped in the first place....I could only imagine the pain and heartbreak he was going through and chalked this up to his delusions.....After all I had just became witness to the greatest man to have ever lived being eaten alive from within himself..with nothing I could do to stop it or take it all away..I went to church with him and prayed as he received the holy ghost and spoke in tongues....I was there to congratulate him as he raised from the waters of being baptized...and I helped him down the stairs from the waters as he was too weak to manage them himself...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

On the day of his funeral all of the family and a few friends had gathered in the gym of the church where we waited to go in...and as suprising as it sounds it truly only pays tribute to the type of person my father was.....why I speak of him as I do....He had asked that his last right of passage be in a small building at the funeral home which had a seating capacity of about 50 people....My brother and sister moved it to a church in Sperry against my calling for his last wishes be honored. As the family was called to enter the preceedings I was astonished to see standing room only with about 1200 people in attendance for a man who never lived further than a block from where he grew up.....A small business owner who stayed within himself and never cared to impress even the richest of person who ever entered one of his conversations.....

Grown men cried, and moaned as they passed by the casket at the end of the hour long speach of his life....tears from aquaintances at the race tracks we raced at...they had only come to pay tribute to their fellow competitor...although he had never raced himself he was a known figure at the race tracks around who lowered their flags to half mass in rememberance of the man who I had always called Dad.....

Stories of phone calls to their house in the night...and my father talking for hours only to hang up the phone to the question from my mother as to who was on the phone...my fathers reply..."I didnt catch his name....he had the wrong number"....my father never met a stranger..and when you talked to him it never mattered how many were around...you always felt like you were the only person in the room....

At the end of everyone saying their individual goodbyes friends were asked to step outside while the family said their own each in their own ways of peace...I had sat in my pue strong and unwilted for my mothers sake and my wife who had sat and talked throughout with her sister. yet we all have our own ways of remorse and dealing with death...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

I held my Dads cold hand...there had been no life there for 3 days....I couldnt speak a word, yet my thoughts were plenty....I bent to kiss his cheek and found it soft....warm....I said my goodbyes, and turned away for the last time....

My wife had asked me to walk her outside...her hand in my own we stepped out into the crowd still gathered....among the many looks....and pats on the back I couldnt stop for conversations...I walked her to the truck, and returned inside to help my mother outside much in the same way....A man yelled out my name....as I turned to acknowledge him he held out his hand....extending mine I shoock his only to feel he had placed something in my own....I looked down and saw it was money....I stopped and pleaded my father would want no charity he asked me to take it, and he would explain in the coming days....

flowing memories exist in my thoughts....never ending...never resting...I have seen truth yet can not see reasoning....The suns fog on a clouded day....the circles of the moon as the mist seems to rise....I never seek the brightest stars....to fall is never death..I wonder how many people before me...how long ago...had anyone stood in the places I have seen, and looked upon the same....in the same light...with the same eyes....life is a journey...we each hold what we ask....dwell upon what we do not..

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

With 237$ in the bank accounts and a depleted inventory I opened the shop the day after my fathers funeral....determined to carry out all of the promises I had made my friend....just a few days before my brother had come to me and asked me to put it all aside....he voiced his concerns about my family...my finances and his forseen struggles with trying to bring back a business that had long been deprived...A promise is a promise I explained...and using one of my fathers favorite quotes I reminded him that if a mans word wasnt worth anything than neither was the man...

I cleaned the counter...swept the floors...I took the coffee pot off the counter..I didnt drink coffee and everytime I looked over and saw it I felt an urge to brew a pot and wait on my dad to return....working in the same office that I once shared with my father for 20 years and now sitting there alone was so much more difficult that I could have ever imagined...I knew it would upset my family by removing all of the many reminders yet I had to in order to ensure my own mental survival....

That afternoon the man that had placed $100 in my hand the day before walked into the shop....and asked if I rememebered him coming in before....I answered no...he asked if he could come in and explain...he had said that his father had passed away 4 years prior...he had come by the shop and spoke with my Dad...asked if he could borrow some money to buy new clothes to wear to his fathers funeral and without questions he had loaned it to him....He explained his sorrow....and want of putting his fathers passing behind him...and how repaying my father just fell into that category in his own mind....yet had always planned to return the loan so generously given him....

In the late night conversations with my father he had spoke of Baker, and Bird....he would talk about our friend who passed away at the race track...and linked them all together in a topic of conversations with one another.....He spoke of their illnesses..their deaths...and their futures.....along with my father within the past 6 months everyone of my close friends....racing companions were gone...I was alone and would come to depend on my wife more and more in every aspect...

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

During one of our talks he revealed to me his conversation with Baker...and how he had told him of him being sick with not much longer to live....how he had known about Birds coming death before he fell ill....and how much this experience had taught him about the few words Bird had spoken to him after talking the our friends widow at the race track months before....

In the beginning there come tormented torture....mental wondering...loss of focus, and mitemarish visions of demonic creatures named from people who had once been close to you....a weaker man would fold, and find an escape...but...once you gain stability and focus it begins to show your decay as it lives within you....feasting upon everything which you need for survival....In poor health if your mind can overcome it is only a matter of time before your body can handle no more and dies from exhaustion...always looking for another host once to carry on its attacks...Multiplying....and controling...

I came to the truth...and realization with the kiss of my fathers cheek....as it entered....his cheek was warm not because of his undying love to give comfort but as an escape for the being within......passed from friend to friend...person to person....until the world has been used...eaten alive....I am my fathers son.....

Happiness is a definition....Once a person finds their desires....their wants...their needs....and knows what they truly deserve...they have allowed themselves to look past their own...and have found a happiness within an existance....

The wind breaks across the waters as it moves every tree from top to bottom....white caps show as its result...furious and crashing....you see the ovbious...but only them the reasons little of your thoughts....distraction by what is set before us in sight...yet giving the explanation not its due....

what remains for me to conquer here....what is here left to see.....is there yet one part left to explore....I can not go for I know the answer....to travel I can not....To run...no.......I am not troubled as my thoughts would indicate and show me to be.....

The day of Sunday has risen upon us....to spend time with their past...to be corrupted in their future...I seek answers in my dwellings, yet fear I have stayed too long within thiem...many things I have not said....many left unheard...forgiveness I do not ask for...A walk in my journey you have given.....

© 2010 ..SUPERMAN..

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