Run Like the Wind and Play Forever by J C Laird (polar express read aloud txt) 📕

Jimmy’s head snapped back, his attention refocused. “I’ve just been wondering about it, is all.”

Sara snorted, an endearing trait of hers.

Gary continued, “With grandpa having died there, Grandma Vera wanted nothing to do with the cabin anymore. Her son, my father, had passed away several years before, so she sold it to my mother. When Mom died, she left it to me.” Gary gazed out at the lake and the lights of the homes on the other side. “Like you, I spent many days up here when I was a kid.”

Jimmy was leaning forward in anticipation. Sara snickered again as eagerness lit his face. “You’ll have to excuse your cousin, Gary. For some reason he has this thing about childhood being the best time of his life, and he equates our grandparents’ cabin with that time somehow.”

“I have to admit we had great times at the lake, although we were seldom here at the same time as you and Jimmy,” Gary said.

“But it sounds like Jimmy’s seeing the past through ‘rose-colored glasses,’” Lisa chimed in from the shadows.

“And they seem to get rosier the older he gets,” Sara added. Her smile flickered in the light from the crackling fire. “Jimmy thinks those days of his childhood were the best days ever. He’d go back if he could. I wouldn’t myself. I can’t imagine going through all the trials and tribulations of another lifetime: school, jobs, careers, difficulties, pain, tragedy, heartbreaks, all the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys, the seemingly endless day-to-day grind.” She paused, catching her breath. “Unless, of course, you could stay a child forever,” she added, laughing.

Jimmy didn’t seem interested in changing the topic, so Gary steered things back to the cabin. “Anyway, the cottage is basically the same as when grandpa died. I didn’t update or renovate anything, only restored it to the way it was,” Gary said. “I even left the fruit cellar as is. Or as was, you might say.”

Jimmy reminisced, “I remember—I was probably only five or six, I think—when grandma and grandpa first bought the cabin. Never was interested in going down into that dark hole under the utility room. Too scary for me. I also remember we had to use a hand pump, red as I recall, to get water from a well out back. In the living room they had one of those big, old, black Ben Franklin stoves for heat. And the interior walls didn’t even go all the way to the ceiling.”

“I didn’t restore things from that far back,” Gary said with a laugh. “I was only born a short time before they bought the cabin. My memories of the place didn’t start until well after kindergarten.”

They all lapsed into a comfortable silence, listening to the lapping water of the lake on the shore, the crackling fire, and the rustle of the trees in the gentle breeze overhead. Jimmy glanced again at the cabin.

As if on cue, Gary resumed the topic of the cottage. “Right now we have the cabin rented out for a week. Danny is an interesting fellow, a Hopi Indian, a genuine Native American. He won’t have a problem with us taking a tour of the old homestead tomorrow.”

“What a great coincidence,” Jimmy said. “Laura and I visited the Hopi Reservation in Arizona years ago. We were returning from a vacation to the Grand Canyon and checked it out.” Jimmy was appeased, temporarily at least, on the subject of the cottage, and they spent the rest of the evening in pleasant conversation about more recent events.

The next morning after a hearty breakfast of pancakes and sausage, Gary phoned his renter next door. After a short conversation he turned to Jimmy and Sara. “Danny says you’re more than welcome to come over and look at the old place—and all my handiwork, of course.

Jimmy stared at the small cottage as they made the short walk next door. It was like coming home, even after his 68 year absence. Gary had restored the exterior to its original look, and it appeared the same as in the memories of his boyhood. It was eerie. Gary and Sara were chatting and laughing, but Jimmy was oblivious, lost in his reverie.

The door was answered by a broad shouldered, mocha skinned man in his mid-fifties. His mop of black hair was slicked down, and a broad smile creased his rugged face. “Come in, come in,” he said stepping aside to let them enter. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Gary made the introductions. “Sara, Jimmy, this is Daniel Cheveyo Humetewa. Daniel, these are my long lost cousins, Jimmy and Sara.”

The man shook their hands, his grip firm, almost painful. ‘You can just call me Danny, everyone does,” he said. “Cheveyo is my given Hopi name and, should you ever wonder, it means ‘Spirit Warrior’ in our native tongue.”

After a few more pleasantries, the tour began. Danny stood apart as Gary guided his cousins through the small, two-bedroom cottage, describing his restorations along the way. Jimmy was finding it difficult to pay attention. Images of himself as a young boy wandering through the cabin kept intruding: the bedroom where he slept, the small kitchen and table where he ate, the living room with its stone fireplace, the knickknack shelves overhead dividing the kitchen and living room, the view of the backyard where he ran and played, the lake where he swam, fished and boated with his grandfather. They all brought a dizzying onslaught of nostalgia.

When they finished, Daniel rejoined the conversation. “Anybody up for a cup of fresh brewed coffee? Just made it, and I have a few donuts left, too.”

“Thanks, Danny, but I have a lot of work to do on my dock and seawall,” Gary said.

Sara also declined. “Thank you for the offer, but unfortunately I volunteered to help Lisa wash windows today. All forty-two of them,” she added, laughing.

Daniel turned to Jimmy, his eyebrows arched.

“I’m in, Danny, sounds good to me. Coffee and donuts, a fine mid-morning snack.”

Gary and Sara said their goodbyes and headed out, leaving the two of them sitting at the kitchen table sipping their coffee. “So, Danny, what do you do for a living? As you can guess from my advanced age, I’m retired,” he chuckled.

“I’m an accountant,” Daniel said.

“Here in Michigan?”

“No, for the tribal council in my Village of Moenkopi on the Hopi Pueblo Reservation in Arizona.” Daniel said with a smile. “It’s about forty miles west of the Pueblo’s Third Mesa. My ancestors came from that mesa, and I still get back there often to visit relatives and help out. I even take part in the old festivals and rituals upon occasion. And before you ask, I take my vacations in the outside world, so to speak, in places different from our arid lands in Arizona. This forested, water wonderland of Michigan fits the bill. And, no, I’m not married and have no children. There, does that take care of everything?”

Jimmy felt his face grow hot. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Daniel’s smile was disarming. “No offense taken. So what do you think of the old homestead now, 68 years later,” he said, changing the subject.

“It’s amazing, just like I remember. A big dose of memories. I have a photo album with all the pictures from back then, of me and the cabin. And other people of course,” he added. “Everything looks the same.”

“Did you bring the album with you?”

“Yes.”

“May I see it sometime?”

Jimmy jumped up, his knees popping. “It’s in the car. I’ll run and get it, be right back.” He was back less than a minute later, a little breathless, and handed the book to Daniel.

The man opened the album and slowly leafed through the pages, his face impassive, his dark eyes fixed on the images. Jimmy recalled something about photographs he had heard during his visit years ago to the Hopi Pueblo. It had to do with… what was it…

He strove to pin the memory down. It came to him like a thunderclap. “I just remembered, Mr. Humatewa… Cheveyo… Daniel, I mean Danny… ah… about photographs… and… um… the Hopi Indians… I mean Native Americans…”

Daniel looked up at him without a word, his chiseled face emotionless. Stoic was the word that popped into Jimmy’s mind. “It was about the pictures... taking photographs, that is.” He regained a little of his composure. “My wife and I visited the Hopi Reservation years ago while on vacation. They said we were welcome, but to not take… ah… any photographs of anyone while we were there. Something about… um… capturing their souls or something…” Jimmy’s voice trailed off in a confusion of jumbled thoughts. He could feel himself blushing again.

Daniel’s rugged face softened with a smile and morphed further into a wide grin, his eyes sparkling. “Just superstition. Actually, my village was the last to give up that old belief. There are still a few that hang on to that old wives’ tale, but only a few, and mostly the very elderly.”

Jimmy relaxed. “How did that superstition go?” he asked, still a little apprehensive.

“Hopis believe the soul causes life and thought in the person it animates, a fine, immaterial human image, something like steam, air or shadow by its nature.” Daniel spun the photo album around on the table to face Jimmy. “You have a lot of pictures here of the cabin, along with you and your sister. My village once believed every photograph taken of them captured a piece of their soul, that piece transferred into the resulting paper images.” Daniel stabbed a picture of Jimmy in the album with his finger for emphasis. “Not a good thing in their view. And considering the number of photos you’ve accumulated, I’d say you left a big chunk of your soul back in your childhood… if one were to believe in such a crazy idea, that is.” He leaned back and finished his donut with an enigmatic smile.

“Pretty wild,” Jimmy agreed. “And as I remember they were very secretive about the below ground religious centers… kivas, I believe they called them. We were barred from entering any of them, let alone take any pictures.”

“True, many practices of the Hopis are still shrouded in secrecy. As you probably learned, we have no organized religion, per se. We are a spiritual people, one with nature, a part of the whole, kin with the earth and everything in it. We are an ancient people and have been around on the Three Mesas for over a thousand years. Kivas are small chambers where these dated, metaphysical rites are conducted. The kivas are usually underground since Mother Earth, the place from which Man originally emerged into the world, would be embracing them.”

“Dated, metaphysical rites?” Jimmy questioned. “I assume then, as an educated member of the 21st century, you no longer believe in many of the customs and traditions of your ancestors?”

For several seconds Daniel stared at him, his eyes appraising. “I didn’t say that. Merely phrased it in outsider terminology.” He abruptly changed the subject. “So, Jimmy, what’s this obsessive interest of yours with your childhood? Gary told me a little the other day and…” he glanced down at the photo album… “there are a lot of pictures of you when you were a just a boy, many here at the cottage. I get the feeling—”

“They were the happiest days of my life,” Jimmy interrupted. He was glad of the new direction, not only in the change to his favorite theme, but because, again, he feared he had stepped over the line and offended Daniel. “I know that all those fantastic days and weeks my sister and I spent here over the years were magnified by our dysfunctional family life at home, the troubled marriage and the long, drawn out divorce of our parents. Then the courtship of our mother by our eventual stepfather—I think they shipped us here for a couple of summers for a little ‘alone’ time. Still, as you can see from many other non-cabin pictures,