Our oldest trio of granddaughters turn 13, 15, and 16 this year. That’s right, 13, 15, and 16. It is just as hard to believe their fathers are now in their forties. How I managed not to grow older while all this was happening is still a mystery to me.
Just yesterday I was a bare-footed, country boy whiling away the hours in Brim Hollow. Just yesterday I was party of a labor force that culminated in a tobacco or hay crop coming to completion. Just yesterday I took stock of all the lessons I had been taught, gathered my wits, and headed off to college. It seems it was only yesterday.
Just yesterday, after surviving at least one broken heart, I asked a feisty, little blue-eyed blonde to marry me. She said yes, just yesterday.
Just yesterday I was standing in a labor and delivery room holding a miracle when a nurse turned to me and said, “We’re going to let the father take him down to the nurse’s station and weigh him” - 8 lbs. 15 ¼ oz. My, how time flies. His two brothers came shortly thereafter – big, healthy boys. The three of them are the greatest gifts I have ever received. I will forever be thankful to God, and for their mother.
My late mother used to say, “When you look back on your life, it seems like a dream.” I would agree.
Over the years I have gone back and visited so many people in that dream.
My little maternal grandmother never learned to drive. The story goes of how, when she was trying to learn on the Brim Hollow Road, my grandfather was so critical of her attempt, she “threw up her hands” and never tried again. After that day, he did all the driving. At the entrance to the hollow was what we called “the hollow gate.” It had to be opened and closed at every exit and return.
One night my grandmother and grandfather found themselves caught in a violent rainstorm as they approached the hollow gate. My grandfather went into a rage as he would have to get out in the rain and open the gate. He left the truck to open the gate and was “soaked through” when he got back in the truck. He pulled the truck up and then got out again to close the gate. Soaked, again. When he crawled back in the truck his rant continued.
My grandmother’s response became the stuff of legend in our family’s story.
“Rave on, big boy! There’s plenty of water to cool you off!”
The hollow gate was supported by a long, heavy, wire cable which kept it from “dragging.” When I rode with my grandfather, I was the designated gate opener. I opened, closed and “latched” that gate hundreds of times. I got pretty good at it. I last opened and closed it for my grandfather in the fall of ’69. He died that year. I was 12 years old. That, too, seems like yesterday.
For a stretch of about 30 years, I had the privilege of traveling these United States as a part of the professional speaking circuit. In those years, I covered all 50 States. Americans are great people no matter where you find them. And most share the same concerns. I have visited so many wonderful places and met so many fine people. But, even now, as I look back, my many travels seem like a dream.
Moses, in Psalms 90, wrote, “We spend our years as a tale that is told.”
And so, it is.
Time marches on, waits for no one, and will tell.
In the words of the Outlaw Josey Wales, “I reckon so.”
Copyright 2026 by Jack McCall
