Only in a Dream

After their marriage, Brad and Kathy bought a house with a large two car, attached garage. The wheels in Brad's head were spinning, plenty of room in the garage for a model railroad, a large one too. He switched from 'HO' gauge, to 'N' scale. Literally half the size. The railroad empire he had always dreamed of, was now within reach.

Brad still remembered like it was yesterday. The bench work had all been completed for the railroad, he was going to start laying track the next day. He could hardly sleep that night for thinking about it. Before he could start on the train, he needed to visit the hobby shop for some track accessories and wood strips for the bridge that was going to be the starting point.

Kathy and he had taken the two (at the time) children to the doctor that afternoon and ended up being stuck there a lot longer than expected.The hobby shop was going to close before they would get out of the doctor's office. Brad told Kathy he was going to go ahead and walk to the shop before it closed, then walk on home, a distance of about two miles.

"You really are obsessed aren't you?" she said.

She wasn't really thrilled about him leaving, but she told him to go ahead,

"I'll be alright."

Brad remembered how it rained lightly on the way home that day and he had also walked for about two hundred yards along the railroad track. He wasn't really sure why that day stuck out in his mind like it did, but it was ingrained in his memories.

"Wow!! That's been thirty years ago," thought Brad.

Then his thoughts turned to all of the happy times he and Kathy had spent in that old house. The ten years they lived there, now seemed like a lifetime ago, a dream, like it wasn't real somehow. They'd now lived in their current home, twice as long as the old one.

"How is any of this possible?" he thought.

********

Brad's thoughts turned to his grandfather, he remembered how he had tried to get grandpa to go fishing with him, but he never seemed to be interested in going for some reason, then Brad caught a fish. . .

********

It was Brad's fourteenth birthday, he had ridden his bike down to Lake Sun and Fun, to the spot where he always fished. It was a cool, rainy day in March, about fifty degrees, but that wasn't going to stop him from fishing. He had just received a brand new Johnson Century fishing reel and some new buck tail spinners from his mom for his birthday, so he was pretty excited to hit the water.

When he arrived at the lake, he tied on one of the spinners. Looking out over the water, trying to decide where to cast first, he saw a swirl, indicating a fish a little to the right, about thirty feet out.

Good enough, he thought, he cast about ten feet past where the swirl was, then as he reeled it in. . . WHAM!!! He got a huge hit. Something grabbed his lure and made a run for deep water. At first, Brad thought that it was most likely a big carp. The fish made a run of about twenty feet to his left, then the water exploded, the biggest bass he had ever seen in his life jumped up and made itself known.

A couple of years before, he had seen a big bass jump out of the water next to the bank and snatch a blackbird off of a limb hanging low over the water. That was just about one hundred feet from where he now stood,

"Is this that fish?" he thought, "This one looks bigger than it."

No one at all, had believed him about the bass and the blackbird. His friends laughed and said that there weren't any bass that big in that old lake. It became a big joke among his friends, he had been teased relentlessly over it. He wasn't really sure whether or not his grandpa believed the tale or not.

His heart was beating so hard, he thought it would jump out of his chest. The bass made another run and he thought it was going to pull the rod out of his hands. He managed to loosen the drag on his reel a little, letting the fish take some line. Then, it turned and ran the other way, heading for an old tree that had fallen into the water years before.

"No, no, don't go over there!!" Brad said out loud.

He pulled hard on the line and the fish reversed directions.

By now, couple of the local residents had caught on to the fight between boy and fish, and had come out to watch. The bass came out of the the water to make one last attempt to throw the lure, when it came down, it landed on top of the thick moss and algae that ran out about twenty feet from the bank. Brad quickly reeled up the slack, then pulled the bass to shore. He'd won the battle, he had the fish.

The people watching all walked over to see his fish and were amazed at the size of the bass. One elderly man went back to his house and retrieved his fishing rods. They all congratulated him and returned to their homes, except for the old man, who was now fishing.

As Brad gathered up his things, he was shaking, he wanted to get home and show off his fish. He was also scared he would lose it somehow.

"You're not leaving already are you?" the old man questioned.

"Yeah, I want to get home and show this to my grandpa and my friends," Brad replied.

He climbed onto his bike and pedaled for home. Several people stopped him along the way, so that they could admire his fish. What a day, what a birthday it had been, and it wasn't even noon yet.

When he got home, his grandpa was sitting in his usual spot on the front porch and before he noticed the fish,

"You sure weren't gone very long, how did your new reel do?" he asked.

"I only got to cast it once," Brad revealed, as he just realized that fact himself.

Grandpa looked up from his paper, with a concerned look on his face.

"What the hell happened?"

Brad held up his fish, which by now was starting to hurt his arm a little.

"This. . ."

For a few seconds, there was silence, as grandpa's eyes grew to the size of half dollars.

" HOLY SHIT!!!! Grandpa exclaimed, as he came down off of the porch.

"You caught that, right down there in the pit?" he said.

Grandpa was one of the older citizens that still referred to the lake as the pit.

Before Brad had a chance to answer, grandpa was up the steps and going in the front door,

"MA. . . MA. . . Come here and look at the fish the boy caught!"

After a few moments, grandpa reappeared with grandma,

"Oh my heavens," she said, as she came out onto the porch.

Grandpa and grandma stood and admired Brad's fish for a bit, then grandpa said,

"Bring the fish and let's go."

He and Brad got into grandpa's car and they drove over to the bait shop a few blocks away.

After the fish had been weighed on the official scales, the lady at the bait shop was amazed, and impressed,

"Seven pounds, four ounces. That's really a nice fish, I've not seen one come in here like that, for at least twenty years."

Grandpa knew just exactly what fish she was referring to, too. Twenty years before, he had worked at the auto repair shop right across the road from the gravel pit where Brad had caught the fish. One afternoon, just after the shop closed for the day, he was walking over to his car, when he saw a crowd of people across the road at the pit.

He walked over to see what the commotion was all about, when a man slowly climbed up the bank from the water with a very large bass. Grandpa had always remembered that fish, told the story many times. The man had become somewhat of a local Brad's fish was bigger. It made grandpa proud, very proud.

The lady at the bait shop gave Brad some rubber worms and a couple of lures as a prize. Then she took his picture, telling him it would be taped up on the 'wall of fame' with the other photos of large fish that people brought in, just as soon as she had the film developed. Two weeks later, there was his picture on page three of the local newspaper, with the caption: Local Boy Catches Large Bass.

So much for the naysayers about the size of fish in the old pit. . . For a little while, people would see him and congratulate him, always asking all sorts of questions about what he caught it on, where, etc. . . Being shy like he was, it got kind of old quickly, but grandpa sure was proud and would tell people all about it.

After he caught that fish, Brad fished for bass exclusively, catching bluegill and crappie on live bait didn't interest him anymore, they were too easy. He craved the rush he got, when that bass hit his lure like it did, the challenge of fooling them with artificial bait.

Brad catching that fish, awakened something in grandpa, he started fishing again. And not just a little, he caught the bass fishing fever. Grandpa spent the next few years, almost obsessed with fishing, he was almost never spotted without a fishing rod in his hand. When he wasn't at a lake somewhere, he was either sitting in the living room, or on the front porch working on one of the lures he was making.

As Brad reminisced about his grandpa fishing again, he remembered how his best friend always seemed to be around too. When Brad was a freshman in high school, he met Jack Arthur, they became best friends and to this day, still are.

Grandpa, Brad and Jack became fishing buddies, they fished every chance they got. In the local lakes, a couple of State owned lakes about ten miles northeast of town, and an old gravel pit thirteen miles to the north.

Grandpa also tried to freeze them to death, when he took them out on January 1st one year. Then when summer rolled around, it was up at five o'clock every morning. Then, grandpa went to Montgomery Wards and purchased a small Jon boat, because there wasn't a whole lot of bank fishing areas at a couple of the lakes.

They caught a lot of bass, though no one topped the big one that Brad caught, they did catch some pretty nice ones. They even caught some bass on the lures that grandpa had carved. What was square on the ends, medium blue and had yellow stripes in nature, none of them knew, but the bass sure did like them.

They had the best times of their lives, Brad was glad he got to spend time fishing with grandpa, because. . .

It's said that all good times must come to an end, and end they did, a sad end, unfortunately. Just before Brad's eighteenth birthday, grandpa became ill. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, in a few short months, was gone.

Brad was devastated, grandpa's death really took a toll on him, it was something he never could get past. Even today he still had a hard time dealing with it.

Jack was very sad too. He had really learned to like grandpa a lot, as he did not have a real good relationship with his own father.

Brad started sweeping floors at a local dept store when he was just thirteen. When he became old enough to drive, grandpa, grandma, and his mom made him a deal. If he would pay for his own gas and insurance, they would use some of the money that they had saved from his father's Social Security, to buy him a car.

Now being able to drive, he found a job across town, where he could work more hours, and of course make more money.

Not being able to leave anything alone, Brad spent a lot of time and money working on his car. New tires, wheels and air shocks. He tore the engine apart (with grandpa's help), rebuilt it with a hotter cam, eleven to one pistons, an Edlebrock Torker aluminum intake manifold and a Holley carb. Then added headers, with glass pack mufflers. Plus an ACCEL ignition.

In the transmission, he installed a shift kit and a B & M - 'HOLE SHOT' 3000 rpm stall speed torque converter, along with 4.88 gears in the rear end. The car was fast.

Grandpa had fun too. He admitted that he had always wanted to do something like that to a car. Brad and Jack both learned a lot about mechanics from grandpa at the same time.

Grandpa was sick during the final stages of the rebuild, Brad had to do most of it himself. Grandpa had become very frail and against grandma's wishes, he took the car out for a drive a couple of times before he died. He 'got on it' a couple of times too, the look in his eyes was that of pure joy.

Brad was really glad he had finished the car in time that grandpa had the opportunity to drive it before he left. He knew how much that meant to him.

********

Brad thoughts drifted back to the big bass he had caught, he laughed to himself, as he thought about that fish. One thing he would definitely do differently, he would absolutely have had that fish mounted. They had cleaned it and grandma fried it up for supper. Grandpa had saved the head in the freezer.

Come to think about it, Brad had never seen a fish head mounted like a deer or other big game would be, just the head. He smiled,

"What was grandpa thinking?"

That head was still in the freezer fifteen years later, when grandma moved out of her house and in with his aunt. Grandma couldn't bring herself to throw it out, since grandpa had put it in there and been so proud of it. Then he wondered what ever had ever become of the newspaper with his photo in it. He knew they had saved it too.

Brad then thought about the lures grandpa had been working on, they had hung on the pole lamp in the living room. They were still there the last time Brad was in that house (1987). He wasn't sure but, he thought that, when grandma moved out, she had left them hanging there.

Brad's eyes became a little misty as he thought about grandpa. He sure missed him, and wished they'd known about all of the fishing area's just about thirty miles to the north. He sure would have enjoyed those. Then it occurred to him, that maybe he'd had a little help from upstairs catching that big fish. . . That fish really drew him and grandpa much closer before he had to go.

"Wow, it's hard to believe it's been so long ago," he thought.

Brad and Jack had also fixed up and souped up the engine in Jack's old car too. Again, he wondered, where did they ever find the time to do all of the things they had done when they were teenagers.

Brad recalled, how, about five years ago, he and Kathy had gone to a garage sale at a home just out of city limits. There, about a hundred feet behind the house, sat the shell of Jack's old car in a patch of weeds, it had been parted out. He knew that it was Jack's old car, because of the one part that hadn't been taken, a green trunk lid. Brad couldn't remember exactly why Jack had replaced it, but he had.

He explained to the owners how that car had belonged to his best friend back in the 70's and they let him walk out and take a closer look.

Brad almost cried, seeing that car with no doors, the hood missing and of course, the engine was gone. As were the seats, all of the glass. He looked down towards the bottom of the dash on the driver's side. . . There was a length of black wire with about a half of an inch of crumpled bare wire showing on the end, hanging down almost to the floorboard. Brad recalled all of the times Jack had to get down on his knees beside the car and push the wire back into the fuse block, so that his stereo would work. He'd never taken the time to attach a connector on the end of the wire so he could plug it in. He'd just push it in beside a fuse. Apparently, the guy he sold the car to back about 1981 had never taken the time to do it either. The last time Brad had seen the car on the road was in the late 80's, and he'd always wondered where it had gone to.

He looked at the guy who owned it now, and said quietly,

"A lot of good times were had, and a lot of good memories were made in that car."

********

Brad had an idea come to him, he thought that he might to run to the public library and see if they still had model railroad track plan books. He may just build another RR in the garage.

As he walked towards the front door to leave, he called up the steps to Kathy,

"I'm going to run down to the library and see if they have those train books, so I can get some ideas, I think I'm going to build another train."

Kathy hurried out of the bedroom before he made it to the front door.

"Hey, just a minute. Would you stop at Save a Lot on your way back and get a five pound bag of those little red potatoes?"

"Alright, is that all you need?" he replied.

"Yes."

"I'll be back," Brad announced.

He headed for the door, turning the music off on his way out. As he was closing the door, he heard the phone ringing.

As Brad got into the Jeep to go the library, it started to rain.

"I think I'll go out and sit on the deck when I get back," he murmured to himself.

The year before, he'd built a metal roof over the upper deck, it was so soothing sitting out there when it rained. His plan for the last couple of years, was to take out the double windows from the upstairs bedroom out and install patio sliding doors in their place, but he had to feel a little better first. Still, it was such a good place to sit and think.

After Brad arrived at the library, he found that both books were still available. He collected them off of the shelf, then walked around for a while, checking to see if there might be any other books that he or Kathy might be interested in. While browsing through the new book section, he found a large book about the History of Indians in Ohio.

"Kathy should like this one," he thought.

He took the book down from the shelf, then with the three books in hand, headed for the desk.

After the librarian saw the two model railroad books, he engaged Brad for almost fifteen minutes in a conversation about a train layout, that he used to have in his basement years ago. He reminisced, sadly, about how he had regretted taking it down, just as soon as he had put the last of it away. But, his wife had other plans for the basement. He still had all of it packed away in boxes.

"So maybe, someday I'll. . . Oh, well, such is life," the librarian lamented.

"Well, the garage is my area, I think I'm safe. Then again, I had a layout in the garage of my old house and we ended up turning part of it into bedrooms, then I took the train down," said Brad, as he thought back about his old house for a few seconds.

Then added,

"We had three young children back then tho, my kids are all grown and. . . Gone. . . Now."

Brad got a lump in his throat,

"My kids are all grown. . . And gone now," ran through his mind again.

He had been so busy for so long that, he had never really taken the time to actually think about it. They weren't his babies anymore, they were grown and. . . Gone. . . Out on their own now.

A wave of emotion came over him as he turned to leave, he had to get out of there, he didn't catch the last of what the librarian had said, only the last two words,

"Good luck."

"Yeah," Brad responded, as he quickly headed towards the door.

The rain was still falling and coming down pretty hard now. He hurried out to the car, tossed the books into the front passenger seat as he got in, closing the door.

Brad just sat there, it was all he could do to keep from crying. It had all happened so fast, one minute they were babies, then the first day of school. . . Band, softball, his youngest son had played Little League baseball from the age of six until he was thirteen. Now he was twenty five.

"This couldn't be, could it, how? Where did all of those years go?"

His little girl now had children of her own, five of them. And his youngest son had a child of his own now, too.

His children had grown into responsible adults and were all on their own. Not that he wished there weren't any grand kids, but, he somehow felt like he wanted them all back home, so he could protect them all.

Brad wasn't sure how long he sat there, but he finally snapped out of it and headed for home. He was so flustered that he drove right past Save A Lot, then had to turn around to go back. He quickly went into the store, grabbed a bag of potatoes and left.

Once home, he grabbed the books and potatoes and went in, sitting the books on the coffee table and put the potatoes on the kitchen table.