Page 122 - People & Places In Time

Yokohl Valley
Previous Pages:
A Hot Summer in the Yokohl ~ August 8, 2012 Old Oak and Corral ~ April 17, 2012
time. On this night, I’m driving my 2007 Ford pickup, and
yet it seems, that except for the added years, there is no difference between the present and another summer evening in 1962 . . . I’m driving my coral and white 1956 Ford with
the windows down, my friend Nancy Hodge is sitting beside me. We’re taking a ride following a summer baseball game in Exeter. Nancy will be my date to the senior prom next year; but she is also one of my oldest and best friends, and that made it so easy and natural for her to be a shy boy’s prom date. When I think back to our years in grammar school, we were always seated at desks near each other. The home that she grew up in on C street was just around the corner from our home on Palm. I could not know as we drove that night, as we were about to step into lives beyond Exeter, to embark on our separate ways, out of touch; that Nancy would take her life and I would never know what happened to my friend who sits beside me that one summer evening in Yokohl Valley.
I continued my wandering further up Yokohl
Road, slowly taking in the night, listening to the music; the temperature is now in the 70’s and all is good. A full moon comes into view, rising over Blue Ridge.
It’s now June 1963 and four o’clock in the morning following my senior graduation party. A friend and neighbor, JoEllen Creek is beside me in that same ‘56’ Ford, on our way to the top of Blue Ridge, to watch the sunrise. JoEllen’s home was just across the street from my family’s home on Lenox Avenue in Exeter. We sometimes walked to school together; only the football field lay between our homes and Exeter High School and yet it never crossed my mind that she could be more than just a friend Once more it was so easy for this still very shy boy It was only a couple of weeks later that JoEllen’s family was on their way, moving back to Texas. Where else could a girl with the name JoEllen live? I do have a couple of letters and of course, the memories of a time and place I can revisit on occasion.