RECCE ROOM

  There was a tree behind the house. Not directly between the house and the shed, but close—just offset enough to stand on its own. Maybe 8 or 10 feet in each direction from those structures. When I was a boy, my grandfather hung a tire swing from one of its branches. That tree felt big back then. It is massive now. More than 40 years have passed since I last swung from that tire. My grandfather has been gone since 1985. My father since 2018. The swing itself is long gone. But the tree remains. And it grew. Standing there today, looking at it, I didn’t just see a tree. I saw a connection. A living thing that existed then and still exists now. A witness to everything that has changed and everything that has been lost. It’s an old friend. One that doesn’t speak, but somehow still communicates. And for the first time in a long time, standing there… I felt it. This is post six of a multi part series, reflections on the farm owned by my father and my grandfather. This is writ...

  The Day Power Became a Choice I grew up in a violent household. There was not violence every day, but there was more than there should have been. We could count on a family fight about 4-6 times per year. Something that should never be aimed at a child from their parent or parents. But, it was aimed at my siblings and myself.  There are moments where you realize you’re no longer subject to something. This was one of those moments. The Story I was about 17. In our house, there were days where things escalated. Not constantly — but often enough that we recognized the pattern when it started. Again, 4-6 times per year. This was one of those days. Something minor set it off. It always did. My mother escalated. She always was the one who did. My father was home, and as had happened before, he joined in. His anger wasn’t really about us — but it still landed on us. He was angry with her, but he took it out on us. He mistakenly believed that if we capitulated just the right ...

There’s a corner on the property where two fields meet. It forms a clean 90-degree angle—an L-shaped boundary marked by barbed wire fencing. To the west lies the larger field. To the north, the eastern field stretches out. To anyone else, it’s just a corner. To me, it was a battlefield. My brother and I spent hours there with GI Joes and Transformers, turning that patch of ground into something far bigger than it actually was. The terrain mattered. The angles mattered. The fence line became cover, the dips in the earth became strategic positions. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were learning how to see space—not just as it is, but as it could be used. We lost things there. Accessories, probably a figure or two. Small plastic pieces that slipped into the dirt and never came back. And there’s a good chance they’re still there. Buried just beneath the surface, waiting for someone who doesn’t know what they’ve found. But I do. Because I remember not just the place… …but wh...

The Day I Stopped Playing the Game I've mentioned that I grew up in a violent household. Well, not surprisingly, it was also a household filled with mental and verbal abuse. Something that should never be aimed at a child from their parent or parents. But, it was aimed at my siblings and myself.  There are moments where you realize the rules you’ve been following were never fair to begin with. This was one of those moments. The Story My mother asked me to fix her TV. I told her I would, but I couldn’t do it immediately because I had plans already in motion. I left. I came back several hours later, exactly as I said I would. When I went to my room, my TV was gone. There was a note: “Since you went back on your word, I went back on mine.” The TV had been taken. It had been given to me by my grandmother. This was somehow the "word" that my mother was going back on. Don't ask me to make it make sense. Folks with paranoid schizophrenia rarely make logical sense. My mothe...

  Behind where the house once stood, there is still something left. We called it a barn, but that’s not quite right. It was more of a shed—high-ceilinged, open, covered with a mix of tin and plastic roofing that had seen better days even back then. It extended forward and to the right, creating additional covered space. It wasn’t pretty, but it was useful. Vehicles, equipment, whatever needed shelter found its way under that roof at one point or another. Today, it still stands… barely. Time has not been kind to it. The structure leans into its own age. The roof looks like it could give up the ghost with the next strong wind. And yet, it remains. The man who rents the pasture keeps a piece of farm equipment under it. There was also an old Mitsubishi Mirage sitting there, its license plate years out of date, like it had been forgotten mid-sentence. That shed is the last physical connection to what this place used to be. Everything else is memory. But that one structure… it st...

The Day I Realized I Could Fight Without Hurting People I grew up in a violent household. There was not violence every day, but there was more than there should have been. No, it wasn't spanking - though spanking did happen. There was also true violence. Something that should never be aimed at a child from their parent or parents. But, it was aimed at my siblings and myself.  There are moments in life where something shifts, and you know it’s not going back. This story is about one of those moments. The Story I was about 19 or so, still living at home and attending college. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was there with us. The family was doing something simple: folding and putting away laundry. There was a stack of towels that needed to go upstairs. My mother asked my younger sister to take them. My sister asked a reasonable question - how many towels should go in each of the two bathrooms upstairs? That question was taken as defiance. The situation escalated instantly. ...