The road has changed.

I remember it as much bigger with larger hills. But the landscape is unchanged. We drove along Blanchard Furrh Road through small hills and winding turns toward Walter Jacob’s Nature Park just west of the sprawling village of Blanchard.
I grew up in these hills and woods. With anticipation, I couldn’t wait to see the brick facade to the abandoned Buckley Station. Way back in the 1960’s, Buckley Station was a pumping station for natural gas. And the employees had wonderful benefits. A couple of dozen houses were built around a circle on the wooded hill next to the road to the station. In the center of this circle of houses was a huge playground. And not far behind the houses was a private lake and clubhouse for parties and large group gatherings. No one could use those facilities but the people who lived there. What was cool to me as a ten year old was the step like construction of the sign. I could climb up the two levels above the ground.

That’s me in our front yard and right across the highway was the wood around that romantic lake.

I recalled one day riding my bike along the dangerous highway just a half mile or so to Buckley Station. On the way home from school, Renee had borrowed my belt to hold up her pants. Don’t remember why but I had to get my belt back from her and she lived in one of those houses. I had never ventured past the gates of Buckley Station. My mother drove a school bus and she always let the kids off at the red brick gates. Parents waited for them if it rained or was too cold but mostly they walked up the hill to their houses.

My father was adamant I could NEVER ride my bicycle on the highway. I defied my parents once and fell off the bike when a speeding car came over the hill. Wearing shorts did not protect my legs from the ensuing road rash. To hide my disobedience, I wore blue jeans for the next few days. In the summer. In the heat. I have a feeling my mother knew why I was wearing the jeans and the punishment of wearing them over the road rash was more than if I had confessed.

But to retrieve my belt, my father let me ride my bicycle to Buckley Station. He ordered me to get my belt and come right back home. But, Renee had other ideas. Once I arrived she insisted we go to the playground. We tried the swings, the seesaws, and the slides. And then she got her bike and we rode to the clubhouse and the lake.
I remember those couple of hours in a romantic haze, something a ten year old can never truly appreciate, but only imagine. There was a casual freedom and a giddiness. Until!

Riding back up the main road from the lake, my father’s station wagon appeared. I had no watch. I had no appreciation of time. He stopped me in the middle of the road and let his anger fly. My face burned with guilt and shame and embarrassment that Renee saw all of this. But I had retrieved my belt.
My father put my bike in the back of the station wagon and we drove home. I looked wistfully at Renee as we left her on her bike in the middle of the road.

After than, she ignored me on the bus. Once when I tried to rekindle out budding romance, she was so mad she took a five gallon pickle jar in which she had made a terrarium and busted it over my head.
All of this came back to me as we passed those red brick monoliths, gateway to a lost love. Maybe? I would never know but years later, I would meet Sherry at church and any past memories of possible romances went out the window!
In my latest book, “The 1st Demon: Imago Diaboli” I revisited a haunting, abandoned version of Buckley Station. The images I chose in describing this scene were ones of emptiness, hopelessness, and utter darkness.
But like the dark guilt that smothered me on that day, the light of true love years later rekindled my hope. And that grim scene in my book ends on a note of true Hope.

“The !st Demon” is now available at all outlets.
AND, I will be at GeekD Con this weekend with all of my print books and coupons you can purchase to download ebooks. I have put the first ten books of “The Chronicles of Jonathan Steel” in three volumes as ebooks and I will be offering those to anyone who would like to purchase them. Come by my booth on the second floor and visit. I can even sign your book if you’d like.

See You There! Geeks Arise!