by Paul Buttrey

I remember as a young boy I was fascinated by my father's life. What experiences had he gone through? How did he meet the challenges of his generation? What was his life like when he was a boy? What about his progress as a young man? How did he become the kind of person I knew? Some hot summers I sneaked down the back stairs of our house and secretly made my way behind the furnace in the far corner of our cool basement. A dusty, dark, and mysterious trunk sat there, periodically inviting my curiosity. I could only push open the heavy lid of my father's army trunk with great difficulty, producing a nervous creak. Inside I discovered treasures which he had gathered when serving with the United States army in New Caledonia during World War II—pictures, mementos, and especially interesting for a young boy, his army pistol and a bag of bullets! I once had the courage to put six bullets into the revolving bullet chamber. But, alas, I never had enough courage to fire the pistol when it was loaded. I suppose that my fascination with my father's past arose because I felt that I somehow understood myself a little better by looking at the things he had looked at and touching the things he had touched.