Chapter Five

The following is chapter five from the as-of-now unpublished novel Chasing Sunsets by Matthew Osgood

V.

“Takes away the coffee flavor”

“When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.” – Anthony Storr

I felt a combination of being a stranger and lonely for the first time on the trip. Driving these roads was isolating; I had never climbed these hills, may never climb them ever again, I thought, and I wanted to stop and marvel at the landscape. More so, I wanted to share these views with someone. Pictures taken from that trip do not do justice to the experience mainly because the shots were taken while driving and through a windshield. Looking back now, I wondered why I was in so much of a rush that I didn’t pull along the side of the road to take more pictures. I’d like to say that it’s because I was a lonesome traveler, but when I was joined later on the trip, the camera still went unused for the most part. I wanted to create a scrapbook of the places I would see, but we all have these grandiose ideas that go by the wayside for a variety of reasons.

Atop the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, looking south through the clouds hovering over majestic colored mountains, the sun setting opposite over the horizon is where I came up with the phrase, “The places I’ve met and the people I’ve experienced.” There were cars of strangers gazing out over the vista, cars with plates from Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Massachusetts all taking in the same experience. I decided no longer to go places as a stranger, not pretending to be a local, but trying to experience what the locals do. I would not just rush to touristy sites, gathering in all I can read in brochures, but I would try to become one with the land, ask questions of natives. I wanted to try my best to meet these places, to know what they are about.

The best way to look at a situation sometimes can be from a complete outsiders view. Without an affixed opinion, the questions asked and the first impressions are a little more genuine. To come into a scenario where you believe you understand all that there is to be understood, you tend to miss out on important facets of what is going on around you. I tried to approach my trip like this. The desire for learning about the places I visited and the people I saw was not artificial. If my host wanted to show me the sea, the city, the mountains, or the bars, I felt glad to go.

It was strange being part of a situation beyond my control. Looking at all these people who resided in these parts, knew these streets, knew these people, it’s fascinating how little I knew. There are the roads that people travel every day and know so well, and here I am, a wanderer struggling my way through roads and cities of the country, somehow navigating strange streets to find familiarity. I enjoyed when people came from different areas of the country to visit with me because I could show them the sights and sounds from my hometown. Here I was now at the mercy of others, living as an outsider trying to fit in.

Likewise, with people, I’ve found you need to experience them. Meeting someone consists solely of an introduction, small talk, maybe finding a common interest or two. The best way to experience someone is to ask questions, listen to the tone of their voice when they talk, and listen to how they say it. Look into their eyes and see their sincerity or insecurities. Pay attention to how they laugh and what they eat. Let them take you to a local restaurant, especially when traveling. There are Applebee’s and TGI Fridays on every corner in America. A local pub or restaurant elicits an image of who someone really is, an in-depth look at who the person surrounds themselves with, and where, and how they conduct themselves.

The trip to Kentucky was to see a friend Ashlee I had met in Florida. On Spring Break actually. Amazingly, during the trip to Daytona Beach, Florida during my senior year, we had only just hung out one night. I had approached her at a bar and hit it off immediately. We had some drinks, did some dancing, then exchanged numbers. After that, however, we didn’t talk for the rest of the trip. Upon returning home to school, I deleted her number from my cell phone and went on with my life. Returning from class one day approaching graduation in May, I had a voicemail on my phone from Ashlee, in her southern twang asking if I remembered who she was, that she had had a great time hanging out with me and to give her a call sometime. I actually distinctly remember blowing it off, citing that I would never see her again, why call her. I showed a roommate the voicemail, probably just to let him hear the cute accent she had. He implored me to call her. He knew the girl I was referring to, and because she was cute, seemed genuine, and possessed the sexiest accent we’ve ever heard, I called her back.

It turned out we had a tremendous amount of things in common despite our geography. A southern Baptist, she was a junior in college, and the stereotypical Southern belle: 5’0 tall, no more than 100 pounds, strikingly bright blonde hair, blue eyes and a vulnerable disposition. She was amazingly gorgeous and polite. She was extremely genuine on the phone.

We spoke on and off throughout the remainder of the school year, but lost contact as the summer began. I still hadn’t decided that I was going to embark across the country, so I figured her a passing acquaintance. It was fun while it lasted.

After I made the decision to move to San Diego, I began looking into places that I could stop along the way for visits. I knew that Springfield was definitely going to happen because I still had friends there, or friends that would be willing to travel and send me off. Visiting Elisha in New Jersey was also a given because I knew the drive from western Massachusetts to New Jersey had the distinct possibility of creating some traffic problems for me. The city driving would be terrible if that happened, and would take too much out of me. I had also already decided to stop in Chicago to visit my friends Eric and Marisa. They would then drive with me west. I toyed with St. Louis for a little while, but crossed it off the list. Even the decision for Wilmington came just two or three weeks before the trip even began.

Whose idea it was to go through Kentucky, I don’t know, but it definitely wasn’t mine. I suspect it was one of my friends, who, and I agreed, had intentions that bordered on me being a scumbag. I was, surprisingly, as a single 22-year old, very okay with that. So I called, she agreed, and I was headed to Williamsburg, Kentucky.

As the mountains evened out, my anxiety rose. I hardly knew this girl despite our long telephone conversations and drunk dancing on some Daytona Beach dance floor. However, I was committed to going. Alongside the highway I could see a giant cross signaling my entrance into the Bible Belt, but chuckled when directly below the cross was a XXX Porn Superstore.

The town of Williamsburg was everything I imagined a Kentucky town to be. It had a very intimate feel, a small main street snuggled between the only signs of civilization, a small Baptist college and a McDonald’s. Ashlee and I reunited then I followed her to her one bedroom apartment atop the foothills. She was everything I remembered her to be, except she was a lot prettier than I had envisioned. I just hoped that my appearance had the same effect on her. I called a friend to tell him about the goldmine I had just discovered as I followed her home. There was no absence or awkwardness of conversation during those crucial first moments. In typical southern fashion, it was a necessity that I meet her grandmother and aunts before they consented I stay the night. I trusted that I’d be sleeping somewhere else should I make a bad first impression. We spent the night meeting her family, where I exaggerated the Boston accent and charm. Later that night we laughed over drinks at dinner, making plans to make our way to the Fried Chicken Festival the next day. Only in Kentucky.

The World’s Largest Skillet was a disappointment, but we had fun roaming the streets at the festival. She ran into many friends, and, ignorantly, I felt like the smartest person in town because I was the only one without an accent. Or, more factually, the only person with an accent. On the guys, I thought, the accent makes them sound outrageously dumb. On the women, however, vulnerably attractive. The two of us became surprisingly attracted to one another despite our legitimately short time being acquainted. Somehow, and I believe she feels the same way still, the two of us worked. We were complete strangers, and almost complete opposites. We were from different worlds, held different beliefs, and were headed in different directions yet neither of us wanted this short, three-day visit to end. Back on the Smokey Mountains, we took photos of the two of us, figuratively and literally in the clouds on top of the world. Ashlee and I held hands, the conversation never stopped, and we spent all three nights in the same bed.

We kissed goodbye and the finality lurked ominously. We’d probably never be in the same place again. She had found a notebook in which I was writing, and scribbled in a hidden back page instructions to “never forget those who can’t join” me. I found the note only after I arrived in California. Ironically, leaving Ashlee in Kentucky wasn’t as hard as I would have imagined in the previous days. With every mile west I felt like I was cleansing my soul from a previous life and starting new, like erasing a full chalkboard piece by piece until there is nothing but blank space remaining. I would cherish the memories we made, but not dwell on the misfortune of the prospect of never seeing one another again.

As a matter of fact, we did keep in close contact in the months following the trip to Kentucky. We spoke on the phone a number of times a week and arranged a trip for another visit which actually happened. One drunken night, we had talked, and apparently I decided it would be a good idea to book a flight when drunk. Upon my arrival, we were very happy to see one another. However, the next day, she received word that her grandfather had passed away and she needed to leave for Florida that day. She dropped me off at a hotel near the airport, where I stayed alone. I flew back to California the next morning on my dime. After about a week of unreturned phone calls, I heard back from Ashlee. She had driven down to Florida to her grandfathers’ funeral, whereupon she met up with an old ex-boyfriend. They wed on a nice ceremony by the beach at the end of that week. I never talked to Ashlee again.

The stomach rumblings started about four hours into my drive away from my initial trip to Kentucky. Not a breakfast person by nature, I can survive on coffee, cigarettes, and desire to get to a certain destination. As the scenery driving north changed from the rolling Appalachians to the plain lands of Indiana, I could see for miles. Although I still traveled well above the speed limit, life seemed to slow down just a bit as, through the landscape, I could stare into the lives of farmers from generations passed, envying them for roaming these same farms, not knowing a thing about the fast life we’re all so accustomed to living.

I deciphered a bit in my head where I was, how much longer I had to travel until I reached Chicago. Maybe now would be a good time for a lunch break and regrouping. I was about halfway to Chicago, and just a few hours from finally having some companionship on the trip. Staying a few days with some friends would be good for my psyche. They would then join me for the second half of my trek.

Doubling my need to fill my stomach, I also was looking to fill my gas tank and empty my personal tank. The next exit in Crawfordsville, about 20 miles north of Indianapolis, offered both food and gas, so I pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a small diner.

Upon entering, I could see that the place wasn’t exactly a hub for healthy eating, but I sat down anyway. The place reeked of stale coffee and overnighters. Actually, my initial reaction was to turn out the door and look down the road for any sign of a chain restaurant. My conflict was interrupted by the blonde tending the mock-50’s café style bar.

“Just you, sweetie?” she inquired from her post, stroking just one menu.

I nodded wearily. She smiled, and I forced one myself and offered to take a seat at the bar. After taking care of a bill for a young couple, she came over and handed me a menu saturated in grease, ripped at the edges on the one page selection sheet, one side with the choices, the other with a brief family history behind the place, which I read was erected and established in 1957 by local farmers looking to raise a few extra bucks after a flood wiped out their crops earlier that summer. It was still town owned to this day.

“I’m actually ready to order,” I told her. “Just some white toast, some scrabbled eggs, and some sausage. And a coffee please.”

As she filled my cup, she offered sugar and cream, and cringed while I declined both options. “Takes away the coffee flavor,” I smiled.

“And makes your breath smell wonderful,” she winked. She had a charm about her I couldn’t place. The accent made her appeal raise a couple notches, as she leaned about three feet away, looking over her tip money. She smiled a lot, I thought, for someone stuck in a place where another house couldn’t be seen for a few miles. She turned to me, and positioned her elbows in my direction on the counter, palms to her chin, and we chatted seamlessly in between the few customers coming and going.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” She asked, as the cook placed my order on the window connecting the kitchen from the bar.

I laughed, and told her I wasn’t. I told her that I had just graduated college, and I was driving across the country for no reason whatsoever, just to “see what I can.”

“You’d be amazed (making the word three syllables) that I could probably tell you the names of all the regulars,” she laughed. She was probably about 20, pretty, too, with pigtails accentuated with tiny blue ribbons at the end. I was impressed, and charmed when she lit a match to counter my increasing propensity for a smoke with my coffee.

“Oh, I’m Jenny,” she said rolling her eyes, mocking. “And I’ll be your server today.”

Her nametag said “Alice” but she mentioned that it was her mother’s name. She had forgotten her name tag this morning.

“I was trying to refrain from the Brady Bunch jokes,” I said, quickly realizing the corniness of my joke, and my eagerness to keep the conversation going.

“I’ve been here since 6am and I’ve heard that twice, and of course people have made the ‘wow, Alice, you look a lot younger today’ jokes too,” she countered without a beat, secretly stealing a drag from my cigarette, since the last of the customers had walked out.

I told her where I was coming from, and that for a while there, I thought I was lost. I had stopped seeing signs for Chicago about an hour ago. “I was getting worried,” I said. “and on top of that I was hungry.”

“Sometimes being lost can be a blessing.” It seemed like she was flirting. “It helps you make sense of why you’re going exactly where you are.

“Sorry, I’m taking a philosophy class at the junior college around here,” she added quickly, sensing my raised eyebrows at her sudden disposition of psychologist.

The cook leaned over the open hole in the wall with my eggs and sausage, which my new friend handed to me. I laughed because there is nothing funnier, in an immature way, than making fun of someone for ordering sausages because of their phallic appearance. Today, however, I had no one but myself to make fun of my order.

She disappeared for a few minutes and I ate alone, contemplating how this casual experience with someone would agree with my theory that these solemn encounters are what life is made of: meeting people you will never see again in places you may never return to. There are so many different people with their own interesting stories and backgrounds, who enjoy life just as much as anyone else, regardless of where they live or what they do. I knew Jenny and I would never meet or talk ever again, but in our time as “single-serving” friends, I hoped that she would at least smile at the end of the day, as I would, at good company early that Indiana afternoon.

She came pouncing through the kitchen door.

“It’s on the house,” she confidently whispered as I started to pull my wallet out of my pocket. I tried to argue, but she was pretty adamant about not letting me pay the $4.62 I owed.

“You’re a stranger; you’ll never be back here. Besides, your eggs were watery anyway,” she sincerely smiled. “Please, good luck with everything.”

As I reached into my pocket for tip money, I told her that I was a writer, and that perhaps should she look for her name in the acknowledgement section in my first book. “You know, for that ‘lost’ quote that I might steal one day.”

I casually put a $10 bill on the table out of her sight then started for the door.

“Hey,” she sounded. “Don’t think about the tip before you even look at the menu.”

“Good advice,” I said, turning back to her, understanding the analogy.

“Philosophy,” she shrugged.

Chapter Four

The following is the fourth chapter of the as-of-now unpublished novel by Matthew Osgood, Chasing Sunsets

IV.

A perfect day for driving

“…Until it spoke only to me, Impersonally, like someone gradually retreating, Not so much from his life as from its settings, From the country he inhabits; as the darkness depends in the weeks after the solstice.” –John Koethe “Morning in America”

My objective for the next drive, where I would be meeting up with my friend Elisha, was basically to beat the New York City traffic. I was heading to central New Jersey, where she was a medical student. I knew the traffic would be terrible if I hit rush hour driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge, and I understood that should I fail my mission, I would be facing a critical two hour delay.

Cops rarely patrol Rt. 91 through Connecticut, so I kept cruise control around 80. Lost somewhere in the surroundings, I must have missed the exit I needed to take for the bridge. Luckily, having been through New York City a bunch of times, I could navigate my way to get at least through the city and into New Jersey.

Amazingly, missing the Tappan Zee Bridge was nothing outrageously new for me. I had been given directions twice now instructing me over the bridge. Both times I’ve missed going over the bridge, and still to this day I do not believe it really exists.

I passed through New York with recollection of the many times I’ve been there in the past four years. Many of my friends from college lived in or around “the city”, such is the way my friends refer to Manhattan, as if it’s the only metropolitan area in America, so I’ve been fortunate to have an enthusiastic ensemble of hosts around the place.

New York is a beautiful city in many ways. The skyline rockets out of the concrete, so tall that it stands alone like Yao Ming in a Beijing elevator, everything cowering sadly below. The magnificence of viewing the buildings from afar on the Throgs Neck or George Washington Bridge is awe-inspiring, and only amplified at night when thousands of lights illuminate starless evenings. The true effect of the cities regality strikes when standing at the base of a building 80 stories high, staring straight up, and feeling queasy at the realization of the structures’ awesome size and adequate ability to crush anyone or anything within ten blocks should it topple over. Almost as much as the absurd size of the building, what impresses me about the city of Manhattan is the culture. New Yorkers claim the city as their own, yet they share it with millions of visitors a year. There’s an innate sense of ownership to everyone in the country and after the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001, the world saw America’s ability to rally behind a place, uniting New Yorkers with everyone else in the country. There are very few cities in America, or the world, that have the ability to overcome such tragedy with such tremendous aplomb.

My first trip to New York wasn’t very long ago, but they’ve come very often in the past seven years. While visiting friends, I’ve seen the Knicks play in the Madison Square Garden and traveled to all parts of Long Island, including a yearly two or three visits to the eastern end of the island, known laconically as “the Hamptons.” However, nothing can ever top the first time I was there, the first time I stood beneath skyscrapers taller than all the buildings in my town stacked on top of one another.

The summer after my freshman year in college in the summer of 2001, I went to Long Island to visit some of the friends I had made the previous year. We visited some of the popular bars around Nassau County during the first couple of nights. On the Saturday of my visit, my college friend Kristen and I took the train into Manhattan to do the tourist thing.

The city was enormous and inspiring, a man-made wonder. Immediately upon reaching street level, I saw Madison Square Garden, which houses the hated New York Knicks, but is a historical venue I always wanted to see. The city seemed so new, commercialized, and updated, but I marveled – and still do – at the cities’ ability to keep its’ unique charm and history intact.

We spent the afternoon walking along the city blocks, snapping pictures and watching street performers. We shot hoops at the NBA Store and pretended to be Heisman Trophy candidates at the Radio City Music Hall. The two of us cooled from the heat in stores along Fifth Avenue in which we clearly did not fit in. When our feet got tired, we hired a horse-drawn carriage to bring us to a late afternoon lunch. After an amazingly overpriced lunch, Kristen and I walked the short walk from Times Square to the Empire State Building.

The sun was beginning to set on a sweltering afternoon as we stood atop the Empire State Building. It felt as if we were on top of the world, the people and cars below just ants in our kingdom. The two of us looked south towards the World Trade Center buildings and the Statue of Liberty.

“Is it too late to take a cab down to there?” I asked pointing south towards lower Manhattan. Kristen turned around to me in the haze atop one of the worlds largest buildings.

“We should probably be heading back to Long Island,” she responded. “It’s getting late.”

“Okay,” I said regaining my gaze over the now tiny buildings of New York.

I conceded defeat of the day. We had taken in as much as we could during a 12 hour span of walking around the city. During one last meaningful stare through the haze from my towering perch, Kristen approached me from behind.

“Don’t worry,” she said nonchalantly. “Next time you come visit the city we’ll go see the World Trade Center.”

“Deal,” I said. I turned towards her and the way to the elevator.

She continued, “It’s not like it’s going anywhere.”

#

Luck hit me when I reached New Jersey. Far off my course, I was ready to give up on my manly intuition and stop for directions to the highway I had somehow misplaced. In the land of jug handle turns, and wanna-be New Yorkers, I felt oddly out of place. When the sun began to dip below the horizon, I found the road I was looking for. I was on the opposite end of the road from where I should have been, but I was able to alter the plans accordingly.

Around 8 o’clock I arrived at Elisha’s house, where she lived with a roommate, both of whom were studying for an important test. That fact didn’t hinder any plans, as I knew that this one night stay would be more for rest and relaxation. We ate in, stuffing ourselves with sandwiches and cheesecake.

Outside sharing some laughs and a couple of cigarettes, I recognized that Elisha was my last link to my hometown, the last person I would see who reminded me of being on Hampshire Circle.

“I’m happy that I’m seeing you today,” I told her. She had been dating my friend for the better part of ten years now, and living with the family, which was just a few houses down. “I won’t see another person from Methuen for I don’t know how long.

“For years I have always had the concrete knowledge that I could go to that little piece of property on the Spicket River, and find friends at all angles. I had the comfort of knowing I had a place called ‘home,’ where I could go and my brothers would be there, my friends weren’t far away. Now I’m going a place where I don’t know anyone, really.”

She assured me I’d be fine, but I had to at least play devil’s advocate with myself if no one else would. I’ve been in many situations where I’ve needed to make life work on my own and succeeded. I had little doubt I could make things work in California, but without doubt, there would be no such thing as confidence.

I woke up early on the couch in New Jersey, the sun dancing just above the maple trees surrounding Elisha’s house, the sky colored a blue only defined in a color wheel. A perfect day for driving.

The trip, according to my map, followed I-95 about 700 miles down through the nations capital and the eastern seaboard. I remorsefully blew off a friend in southern New Jersey in order to make better timing on my trip, but at the time I was eager to get the trip started “for real.”

I hit traffic around Baltimore, but it got me to reflect on the time I had spent there when I fell in love with the city.

Two years previously, a couple friends and I went to Baltimore for a journalistic conference. While the conference in itself was lame, we made due by drinking bottles of Jack Daniels and wandering the city. Baltimore’s inner harbor and Fells Point are where we spent most of our time, stumbling around drunk, meeting locals, and egging on the serial sniper that was lurking the area at the time.

We had a hotel room overlooking Chesapeake Bay from 20 floors up; we spent the evenings forgetting what we learned at the days’ workshops, and I always vowed to go back to enjoy the city as a visitor and not a conference goer. Driving through the outskirts of the city, now I wondered if I’d ever be back.

The scenery down I-95 is filled with football and baseball stadiums, historic landmarks, and a remarkable transition from the hustle of northeastern cities to the trees outlining the highways leading to the site of the Confederacy. I passed the site of monuments in Washington D.C. and started down towards the Mason-Dixon line. When I passed the border of Virginia, the speed limit increased to 70 MPH, the next time the speed limit would dip below 70 again was in California, I spotted a sign for Manassas, VA. I called my friend.

“I just wanted to let you know that I am now passing the site of the first sniper shooting,” I told my friend Ted. He laughed.

“You’re a complete asshole,” he responded, “but that is the shit I want you to call me about. I don’t care about you seeing the Grand Canyon or anything like that. I want you to find the most asshole things you can, then call me.”

I had a lot of requests to call people when I passed significant milestones on my journey. One friend wanted me to call him upon the arrival of each state and I did a horrible job of it. Eventually I called him up somewhere during my journey and said as fast as I could, “Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska….” Before he cut me off laughing,

“I got it, thanks, asshole.”

I merged onto I-40 towards the coast of Carolina. I’ve always had a romantic fascination with the state of North Carolina and I don’t know if there is any particular reason why. The relationship between North Carolina and I developed somewhat into a crush, where I envisioned something in my mind that was probably better than what it would have been in real life. I battled with going to school in Charlotte before deciding to stick around Massachusetts, but my visit there was an experience I’d never forget and one I wanted to actually live out.

I think the reason I had such an appreciation for the state was the idea that if I had chosen to go to college there, I would have been far away doing something none of my friends were doing, like I’d be taking a risk into self-dependency. I saw the possibility of going to school in North Carolina as a chance of getting away from where I was from, starting anew somewhere. Since the day I decided to stay home, I guess I may have felt like an opportunity slipped away. When my friend Leah said she was living down there for her last physical therapy clinical, I saw it as a great opportunity to spend time with a friend and the place I held in such high regard.

As I turned into Leah’s driveway amongst the mangrove trees and the rigs on Cape Fear in Wilmington, she sprinted out of the little seaside home she was staying in and jumped into my arms like a little kid racing towards a father home from a business trip. Leah and I had spent our college careers on different paths, but our extra-curricular activities were almost all the same. Despite the fact we didn’t hang out nearly as often as we should have during our four years in college, we became great friends. She is someone who I sought out at all of the similar clubs we were a part of. Her apartment senior year was just a 50-yard walk from my own. I was looking forward to spending a couple days with her. She was lonely living alone, and enthusiastic to show me - her first visitor - where she had been living.

Leah has a dancer’s build, and she’s a pretty blonde from a small-town in upstate New York. She went to college solely as a dance major, but a car accident her freshman year derailed those dreams. She was now focused to help people recover from similarly damaging injuries in the field of physical therapy. Isn’t it odd how we make small consolations for ourselves? For instance, once I figured out I wasn’t going to be six-five, 250 pounds, I gave up on the dream of playing linebacker for the Penn State Nittany Lions and focused on telling stories about people who were. She was doing the same thing, which is never compromising or abandoning what you’re passionate about.

I knew nothing of Wilmington, and almost immediately following the three-minute long tour of her tiny house, we decided on dinner, but first the beach. I nostalgically reflected that the sunset falling opposite the ocean would be the last I would see from the east coast for an indefinite period of time. We waded a bit in the ocean, deciding that we should probably spend a good part of the two days I’m there lounging at the beach during the day and drinking at the bars when the sun sunk down over the horizon.

There is no better view in this world than the sight of a southern girl accompanied by her accented voice. In fact, the limb I will proceed to climb upon is to say that Wilmington, North Carolina has the prettiest girls in the entire country. Of all the places I’ve been, I have never fallen in love with so many girls in such a short amount of time. Truly, this part of the country is a diamond in the rough for women, like finding the perfect bar, right out of view from the tourists.

Being in North Carolina was liberating because I was so far from home. I was 700 miles away from home, and now solidly embedded in proceeding with the trip. There was money to be spent, alcohol to be consumed, and stories to be shared and made. When I decided to make the trip to North Carolina, I had looked for things to do in the area. What I found was a ghost tour of the city, which happened to be America’s first major port city, producing hordes of trade ships filled with supplies from the European countries trafficking in and out at all times. With the trafficking of everyday supplies came pirates, and as fantastic as it sounds, the truth of the matter lies in the ghostly past of the city. Pirates ran the city, plundering riches from sailors, parading through the cobblestone streets that still remain to this day. On the ghost tour, our tour guide showed us homes that were rumored to be haunted, and graveyards directly responsible for coining the terms we’re familiar with. Apparently, when the influenza epidemic hit Wilmington, citizens would be sick and unconscious for days at a time. Thinking these people were dead, and lacking proper medical protocols, family members would bury them, only to find out later that they had buried their family or friends alive. The remedy for this faux pas was to tie a string around a persons’ finger when buried, leading to a bell atop the grounds’ surface where someone would stand guard (“graveyard shift”) who would listen for the bell to toll, hence “dead ringer” and possibly “for whom the bell tolls.”

The city was big enough to be considered a major city in the state, but small enough to remind me of my Boston roots, where it was easy to walk around and revel in the authenticity of one of America’s first big cities without feeling trapped in a concrete jungle. There were trees that had been there for years, not phony trees being replaced every summer. From the graveyards sitting in the heart of the city to the cobblestone streets to the modern America downtown streets filled with pubs and McDonald’s, it was a city I felt eerily familiar with.

People had a strange fascination with the relationship of Leah and me as we hopped from pub to pub on Market and N. Front Street. A street-poet performed a love poem for us as we walked up the not-so-lit alleyways and, as Leah ducked into the bathroom, my cue shot was interrupted by a very intoxicated patron at Longstreet’s Irish Pub saying, “your girlfriend is hot. Interested in a threesome?”

We weren’t, so we walked back to the car after paying our tab. We retreated to her little house near Cape Fear.

The two of us frightened ourselves that night, perhaps it was at one of the pubs where we rehashed ghost stories, or when we returned home where we made inappropriate remarks about the rustling of wind being the presence of haunting spirits.

We sat on the screened-in back porch of her house, talking seriously about a subject long forgotten, and having a night-cap of Tanqueray and tonic. With a slight bit of tension in the air, we listened to jazz and three times made “just one more” drink. Perhaps it was that for a 700 mile radius, we only knew each other, maybe it was the gin, maybe it was lingering feelings, or maybe we were just trying to forget the ghost stories, but we did slept a little closer that night.

A few days later I left the salty Carolina shore. We said goodbye early in the morning as she got ready for another day of work. I honestly could have stayed there, in that little blue and white home with her, for the rest of my life. Forget California. With one last wave and a honk as my car shifted from reverse to drive, I was leaving. Sometimes we really never know how to just stay still.

Milking what I could out of what I considered the best way I could have spent my last east coast hours, I stopped along the road in Raleigh for a coffee and a donut at a gas station. I made conversation with the clerk, and also purchased a $6.99 Bob Seger Greatest Hits album on tape. It had been a while since I had bought a tape. A couple hours later, I was driving through the Appalachian Mountains westward through the swiftly changing autumn of western Carolina and Tennessee.

The college crew, as mentioned in chapter three.

*Chasing Sunsets in the as-of-now unpublished novel by Matthew Osgood. Subsequent chapters will be posted bi-weekly*

III.

A writer by horrible misfortune

“I should not talk so much about myself
if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.” –H.D Thoreau
from the chapter "Economy" in Walden

I began to wonder throughout that summer why people chose to move far away from home after college. After all, we had it pretty nice where we were. People my age are the offspring of the Baby Boomer generation; a generation that relied heavily on themselves while parents remained mysteriously absent, mentally and physically, after the second Great War was fought and won. Idealistic suburbs sprang up across the country; kids of that generation became very self-reliant, and became the first real successful and rich entrepreneurs in America. In my opinion, the lack of closeness this generation had with their forefathers produced an overwhelming sense of pride in their desire to hold their children closer than they were held.

Herein lies the problem. My generation has since decided that they are temporarily sick of the family vacations to Disney World, they’re sick of sitting around the table having open relationships with their families, and they’re tired of having to look to their parents when making an important decision like moving or buying a car. I don’t think there is a resentment to the fact that coddling has taken place, I just believe there is an element of wanting to break free for a while and return to the nest when it is necessary. We are expected to take out more loans, live at home longer than our parents did. We are spurned jobs because our bachelor’s degree isn’t a high enough degree of education, our piercings and tattoos disable our abilities to perform efficiently.

With the overwhelming college tuition prices, the extraordinary tax hikes, and lack of affordable housing, America seems like an overpowering force for people of my generation. We feel helpless and cheated that the Baby Boomers are now in charge of the world, making it near impossible to break out on our own. Practicality, be damned, I think my generation has an overwhelming desire to prove that this country is ours for the taking, and we’re determined to prove it by trying to be our own people. Part of that is doing the same exact thing our parents did. That is become more self-reliant.

Was that really the reason I was taking off? Retrospectively speaking, maybe. By now, the ability to articulate theories is beyond the range of emotion I felt. I came to realize that I was a nomad by nature, a journalist by profession, and a writer by horrible misfortune. My brothers and I had spent an enormous amount of time in our lives going on family trips, and with the vast sweep of things to do around us, we got used to seeing different places and exploring them. Suddenly, I realized the ideology that I could now do this alone, finding places unfamiliar. Somewhere along this trip and in the aftermath, I would be able to see where I was going and what I was trying to do.

The trip to Springfield was one that I had taken so many times previously, I didn’t even realize how simple it would be compared to the trips I was about to make. The leaves alongside the roads had started to thin out, the trees glowing with leaves of burnt orange and brown, like an aging wife whose beauty remained intact. Fortunately for me, I had people to stop and see, as the road ahead would lead me to stints of absolute boredom and anxiety. I left mid-afternoon, cursing the sun for being in my eyes.

On the Massachusetts Turnpike I realized the setting sun is what I’d be racing after for the next couple of weeks. I would drive zigzags around the country, stopping for a few days on end, visiting places I’ve never been with people I barely knew. But overall, the theme of the trip, for me, was that I was chasing sunsets. Would I ever catch it? I knew not the answer, but I wouldn’t rest until I went as far as I could to find out. The majestic mountains, the pristine plains, and the setting sun would serve as the metaphor of life inasmuch as we all face the embodiment of an arduous mountain climb, the boredom of a six hour drive through cornfields, or the beauty of watching the sun rise or set. The happenstances encountered on the road are figuratively the same we face in life. Sometimes we climb mountains, sometimes we stumble; it’s how we deal with each lesson that matters.

There were a couple of other close friends who would be making the voyage to send me off on my journey with shots and beers, and a visit with my advisor Marty from college, who steered me into pursuing writing for the rest of my life. His main advice was to remain constantly moving “like a shark” in order to obtain a job in the field of journalism, as it’s easy to get caught up in the waves of the Pacific Ocean, and glancing at some of the finest women in the country. He, like all the others, supported the move, and reminded me that the phone lines are always open for communication.

Marty’s influence, I realized, was not restricted to just the classroom. He was also as a friend. We’d laughed and talked over beers and pizza, and he quickly became someone I went to for advice, all the while keeping him updated on my professional decisions and aspirations. Eventually, when journalism turned out to be a field at which I would temporarily cease pursuing in hopes of enhancing my creative writing side and becoming a teacher, his voice reigned with support and encouragement. It was on this final trip to Springfield College before my move that I knew I had made a lifelong friend, someone that the gap of ages were defied by common bonds and understanding between two very similar people.

I glanced over the campus green, which is a stereotypical collegiate atmosphere, but unique. The grass is green and untainted, as it is tradition to not tread over the grass on the way to the dining hall or to class. The wind shook the fading leaves towards the ground, destined to keep the maintenance crew busy raking for the next couple months. Frisbees zoomed around the adjacent green while students languidly sulked toward their last few classes. Just four years ago, I was an 18-year old know-it-all who swaggered onto campus. Now suddenly I became humbled after realizing that after 16 years of schooling that experience was, and still is the best teacher.

Looking over the halls on campus I used to roam, I realized for the first time since graduating the effect that learning in that particular college environment had on me. I did just enough to get by in my required classes, mainly because I knew the people who read what I would eventually pen wouldn’t care that I had no idea how to add fractions or explain photosynthesis. I was smart enough to understand those things marginally, but too lazy to study what everything really meant or how it worked. That fact still does not bother me. I’ve always been able to distinguish the major difference in the workings of the mind of someone who understands math and someone who understands the arts. I don’t need to memorize the first 16 lines of Canterbury Tales to have an opinion on its meaning and succeed in class (though I do have the majority of those 16 lines embedded somewhere in my brain), but I do need to memorize the Pythagorean Theorem in order to get an A in Math. I found, though, that I can still converse with people about Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece, though I don’t know it line for line, while I remembered the mathematical theories just long enough to pass the test.

I have always enjoyed learning. I liked being in a class where I could raise my hand and ask questions in addition to answering them. English classes, for me, were like that in college. Unlike most of my high school teachers, my college professors wanted us to attack each question with fervor and gusto rather than just listen to themselves talk. For many, going to class was a chore in between the 10am SportsCenter and the first of two Simpsons episodes. It was even an excuse for not being able to pick up the kegs at the local liquor store. “Sure, you can use my car, but I have class,” was a popular excuse in lieu of risking bodily harm, administration consequence, or leaving the couch.

There is something strangely satisfying about learning something new. And college was a completely different place to study and learn than what I had previously known.

“And don’t come late to my class. I don’t need that shit,” my professor concluded in his first monologue to my class.

Did he just swear? The intro to journalism class perked up behind sleepy eyes and hot coffees, nervous laughter hummed audibly just below the sound of the computers. My teacher laughed at the class’s reaction. Is this what college is like?

“Here’s your first exam,” he continued, waving a stack of papers like he was a newsboy holding the daily news with a juicy piece of gossip on page one.

Oh, now this is what I expected from college! The whole class sunk in their seats, but didn’t moan in faux-agony because, after all, we were mature college students now. This was to be expected. Were we supposed to like tests now?

“And if you get 100%, which no one ever has,” he said, “you’ll win the Tilly’s Fellowship Award.”

At this we laughed again. Despite our relatively newness to campus, we knew Tilly’s was the place that everyone went to drink at night. Now our teacher was telling us if we aced his exam, we could accompany him to the bar. This place is great, I thought.

Naturally, of course, no one aced the exam. No one ever has.

Once college ended, I knew that I wouldn’t stop reading or writing since school had ended, just as I knew that I wouldn’t stop searching for the hidden meaning in poetry and literature. Even if there are no concrete answers, I revel in the fact that, unlike mathematics, my interpretation is as good as the next man’s. I would miss reading and discussing in groups what a passage meant to each individual, just as I would miss re-reading old stories, and concluding my previous translation was a pile of horseshit. Ironically, after 16 years of wanting to graduate into the working world, I found myself eager to learn more.

Michelangelo, at the end of a long, successful life as an artist and philosopher, stated the famous, “I am still learning,” as if even though he’s had an enriched life as a scholar, he is impervious to the notion that he knows all there is to know. This philosophy always intrigued me. No one has all the solutions, not books, not people, not ancient scrolls tucked away in a casing at the bottom of the ocean. I have been taught that good questions elicit good answers, so the best attitude would be to continuously asked questions. In a way, though, it is a bit unsettling that all life offers cannot be figured out until our lives are withering away. I could have read books about traveling across the country, or watch documentaries about it on cable television, but the answers to what my trip would be like had to be found through the doing.

And if books and television weren’t going to teach me what I wanted to learn, the places I’ll meet and the people I will experience across the country will be an exquisite substitute.

Traveling to Springfield would allow me to see Marty one last time and also my friends, but I was also happy about the ability to spend one last night drinking and hanging out with my younger brother Tim, with whom I had grown closer to since he enrolled at Springfield my senior year. His formative days as a high school student were spent largely bonding with my older brother Jeff because he had graduated college and was living at home while Tim was still in high school. They spent a good amount getting to be friends on top of brothers. I was happy to have my turn in college (a time I spent largely with Jeff around) to get to know the sibling three years my junior.

Like most siblings who get along well, my brothers and I have paradoxically been each others best friends and biggest antagonists for our entire lives. The three of us are closer than any other set of brothers I’ve ever known. We laugh together; we fish and drink together, and have an incredible amount of fun every chance we get some time to spend in each other’s company. This rings true especially on Christmas morning at our parents house opening gifts and generally acting much younger than our ages would suggest we acted. We get along very well and that’s mostly attributed to our parents.

Jeff is two years my elder. Throughout my life, through little choice of my own, I’d be following his steps. My academic career has been trying to emerge from a rather large shadow that he cast as I followed him along the way from kindergarten through college at the same institutions. I’d like to think I succeeded in going my own way despite similar locales. Jeff is the serious one. He’s formal with strangers and generally concerned with other people feeling comfortable when they’re near him. Despite the “I don’t give a shit” façade is a truly caring person who would be upset if he hurt someone. He is the brother who tends to get the drunkest at family events, sporting events and concerts, and proudly names himself the M.V.P. the following day. He is the one with whom the brothers can have a serious talk.

As I am a middle child (and possess all the symptoms that come with middle child syndrome), I have a younger brother. Tim is a couple years younger than I am. He’s the gregarious one. He’s outgoing, funny, and has a knack for having a girlfriend at all times. He may be the most independent of the three Osgood boys. Since he was younger, he’s always march to his own tune in a way that doesn’t make him ostensibly weird; he’s just a little wackier than normal. Tim is the brother with whom serious talks about Jeff are made.

A good friend of mine likes to place the Osgood’s into an over-simplified description: Jeff is the smart one, Tim is the handsome one, and the novelist is the funny one. I’d like to believe we all possess a variety of the three, but the formula is complete.

While my brothers are I get along very well, there is antagonistic side to our relationship. We tend to warm-heartedly rag on one another to an extent where it makes up most of our conversation. When it comes to my being a writer, I get the brunt of most of the insult. They make up fictional titles for fictional things that I “wrote” and if I’m upset, grumpy, or angry, they won’t hesitate to tell me to “write a poem” about it. Now, I’m all for a good jab here and there, but it is frustrating to have something I’m passionate about be the focal point of insult. I can’t have a conversation about books or authors without looking over my shoulders to see if I’m going to be called some slang of the word “homosexual” for the thought of having that kind of conversation. The other brothers “flaws,” namely marriage for Jeff (he gets made fun of for being old, married, and never having fun anymore) and an endless yearning for Christmas mornings, puppies, and all that comes with being cinematically in love for Tim (“girlfriend man”) seem full of jest and mundane in comparison.

#

“Shots on me!” cried Justin the second his foot hit the tile floor of our favorite bar, JT’s. The trip tomorrow would be another easy one, three or four hours down I-95 to New Jersey. So tonight I wanted to live it up one last time with my friends.

Besides Justin, joining us that night was my brother Tim, a host of his friends, my college roommates Gary, and Brian, whom I would be living with in California, my friend Tara from Albany, and my friends Greg and Gina. We stayed at one bar the entire night, doing shots, playing pool, and generally rebel-rousing throughout the night. The evening ended with Greg, an EMT, speeding around Springfield with his siren and lights on as we got high off our surroundings.

The night was not any different from others we had experienced in college. While not the most ideal location in America, Springfield, high in crime rates, a major city in the middle of surrounding rolling hills and farms, was our own playground. We spent four years getting to know the city, where were the best places to eat, regardless of what type of neighborhood it is in, which bars to go to, which strip clubs were the best. We learned that the cops were less concerned about drivers with a little too much drink in them than they were where the latest stabbing had taken place, which was, and it’s up for interpretation, good for us. Our school was also very closed-minded about where we drank. While trying to stiffen up on on-campus alcohol consumption, they closed their ears to the fact that, if not allowed do those things on school grounds, students would be jumping into cars to go downtown. Unfortunately, even with an alcohol-related driving death, the school remained too public-image weary, risking students lives for the own public relation success. We broke a few rules at college, but our standing as students and student leaders was a more valuable asset to the college community. We got away with a lot more than we should have, including a real-life Donkey Kong game, in which kegs shells were thrown down a flight of stairs while someone tried their hardest to run up the same set of stairs. Good for laughs, bad for ankles.

With the sun outlining the western Massachusetts horizon the next morning, I said my goodbyes to my friends, and Tim. Life wasn’t going to get much easier since graduating college, but being around the Bay State my entire life, save for vacations and an internship in Orlando, Florida, wasn’t good for my karma. I needed something new, but first I needed to look back around campus and see what, and who, I was leaving behind.

“We’re going to miss you, Oz,” Gary reminded me, looking upon a campus scene much different, at least structurally than we left it.

“I will see you on the other side of the country,” Brian told me. In a way, we both envied each others journey. While I knew my trip across three time zones would be exciting and adventurous, I also understood that the trip would be much easier to make in a plane alongside Brian. From the other vantage point, for someone who is built tall and lanky like Brian, a six-hour plane ride can be a very difficult thing during which to stay comfortable and sane. I embraced my roommates and best friends of four years, and started on down that highway.

Besides the keg stands and the raucous parties, which included, but didn’t limit themselves to fist fights and random hook-ups, what I knew I’d miss most about college life was the camaraderie of friends. Having the ability to remain in bed or on the couch in sweatpants and still maintain an enviable social life is not a very difficult task to master. Since most of my homework as an English major - and soon to be struggling and starving writer - was reading and writing, two things I enjoyed anyway since I was a little kid, I considered myself to be prepared for the real world. Scraping together money for food and beer while spending a considerable amount of time on the couch, laughing it up with friends while reading and writing remained socially acceptable for those who aimed to pursue life as a scribe.

The time spent living on my own was influenced, good and bad, by the constant presence of friends and casual acquaintances, most of whom were continuously open for causing trouble, skipping class, or going downtown to the bars for happy hour. One of those options, if not all, was selected more often than not. The college friends are the first ones to actually live night and day with one another. In all of the years leading up to our higher education, everyone has their school friends, but when the bell rings or the final practice whistle blows, everyone goes home to be their own person. Many times we find out people are entirely different on their own than when they’re surrounded by their peers. It may be annoying the way the kid sitting behind you in 12^th grade history brushes his teeth, but you’d never know, not being privy to his sanity habits. In college, you get to know the kid who doesn’t necessarily shower every day, the kid who talks to his mother three times a day, or the guy down the hall who smokes entirely too much pot. That is why I’ve always felt like college is the first time we really test ourselves in a social arena. You find out what kind of person you really are through the process of figuring out the type of people you choose to be friends with in college.

Chapter 2

The Car that took me the whole way, Marcus Camry

Here is chapter two of the novel Chasing Sunsets, by Matthew Osgood

*Subsequent chapters will be posted every two weeks*

II.

Like breaking up, peacefully, with a girlfriend

“It should not be denied … that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.” –Wallace Stegner, American West as Living Space

The first issue I had to contend with when leaving was my automobile situation. Sadly, we no longer live in the times of being able to hitchhike anywhere without fear of danger from both the passenger and the driver. As unassuming as I look, at this point in my life I was a chain-smoker and incessant curser who was still showing the after-effects of four year bloating in college. Jack Kerouac could pull that off to kick off the Beat Generation, but today’s generation strikes a little bit of weariness thanks to the assholes that make the local and national news nightly. Sprinkle that with the exaggerated fear of second-hand smoke, and we’re looking at a losing situation for our generation struggling to make a good name for ourselves.

I scraped together the money I had saved painting houses that summer, utilized the lucky $1000 I won on a lottery ticket and bought a used gray four-door sedan. The winning ticket came with a stroke of luck, or maybe it was ingenuity. Some may even call it “seizing the moment.” I was working 20-25 hours a week at a local liquor store to make a little spending cash for myself while I put my check from painting houses away for my trip. Since we sold lottery tickets at the store, it became increasingly hard not to try my luck every once in a while on the scratch tickets. One particular day I had a bunch of money on me – we got paid in cash – and I was working the late shift. There was a customer, who was a regular in the store, consistently losing on the $10 tickets. The $10 tickets are a waste of money, in my opinion, because there are way more losers than there are winners. Some people just like the risk for the possibility of scratching the million dollar winner. The gentleman had lost over $150 playing one particular ticket, sure that the next one would be the big winner. Eventually, he conceded defeat and left angry. Seizing the opportunity, I bought the next ticket. The result? Ten $100 signs. I never told that guy I won. “No, sir, that ticket didn’t win while I was here.”

I cashed my ticket and took the winnings to a used car lot. My truck was rendered useless through wear and tear of the New England winters and the reasonable commute to college and work. It wasn’t the reliable hunk of metal it used to be, and it was time to trade it in.

Parting with a car is a difficult thing. I had that truck, black and gray, through high school and college. The upholstery had been witness to unbearable heat and unfathomable cold because neither the heat nor the air conditioning worked. “Bo Jackson”, the name of my car, and though the name is a man’s name, I gently referred to the automobile as a she, had seen me top 100 MPH and run over rocks in four-wheel drive off the beaten trail in New Hampshire. She had caught me making out with girls who weren’t my girlfriend, and maybe even saw a couple girls without their tops on. She had coughed up smoke, and provided ample trunk space for kegs in college. I’ve always said, “If this car could talk, I would try to keep it mum around my family and future employers.” Bottom line, this truck would not have made it across the country. Before I left the truck, we took one last ride. I made sure to let the car salesman know that the gas petal sticks, so go easy, and that the oil needs to be changed every 1,000 miles rather than 3,000. Just keep some extra oil handy in the trunk. It was like breaking up, peacefully, with a girlfriend.

I was pretty aware, too, that this new car of mine was going to be witness to some antics as well. I was, after all, driving across the country. A small, mid-sized car, it was perfect for the trip I was making, big enough to fit all my stuff, small enough so that I wouldn’t have to spend too much on gas across the United States. I’m a pretty easy customer, too, when it comes to cars. Since I know very little about the inner workings of automobiles, I was mostly concerned with whether or not the car had a CD player, air conditioning, and power locks and windows. Check, check, check. I was good. This car would be my home for the week and a half voyage that I was about to embark upon. It would double as a suitcase, and a shoulder to lean on when the trip got lonely.

My car was packed and ready to go. It was a clear Monday morning and my trip for the night wasn’t far. I was headed just a couple hours west to Springfield, Massachusetts, where I had gone to college. Some friends were still living in the area, including my younger brother. I laugh when I refer to him as my “little brother” because since 7^th grade, he’s been a lot taller than me, rendering myself no longer as a bigger brother. At least I’m still the older one and without question, I would still win in a fight.

My parents and I shed some tears upon my leaving. They knew I was following my heart to see the country, and they supported my trip. My father had made a similar excursion in his twenties to Arizona, and confided in me that he would love to have stayed out there. I promised to call at every stop, as I was traveling alone until Chicago, where I would meet up with a couple friends to travel with me the rest of the way.

My parents have consistently been a rock in my family. We’ve had some struggles, emotionally and financially, but every step of the way, they’ve been able to make things work by emphasizing that the most important thing we have in this world is one another. For the disagreements and fights, the first person to back you up in any circumstance in life would be family. I had chosen a rather difficult path in life by becoming a writer. It would be a struggle just to get a job, to not remain stagnant, as pursuing this craft as a profession can be a tough thing to do. It’s fairly easy to go a few days without writing anything down, but however grueling it may be, inspiration comes from the unknown, and it’s not uncommon to do a week’s worth of writing in a single night. For some reason, and I believe it’s faith in their son, my parents understood that for the days spent on the couch, there were cogs moving around constantly in my head on what to write, and how to get a job. Few realize that even when staring at a blank spot on the wall, or out the window, a writer is working. Words can’t even begin to understand or describe how thankful I was to my parents for supporting the pursuit of my creative dreams, never mind doing it on the other side of the country.

My mother had grown up on the edge of town in Methuen near the New Hampshire border as the fourth child in a large family of seven. Personable, smart, and attractive, yet unreasonably self-conscious, she’s a voracious reader and critical-thinker who majored in psychology at the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. I get those last two traits from her. Also a middle child like I am, she’s sensitive, loyal, and caring.

Eventually, she spurned the career as a psychologist in order to become a full-time mother to her children, in addition to the other children she cared for during her many years as a day care provider out of our home. Along with my father, they’ve welcomed numerous people into their home, whether it was a down-on-her-luck younger sister, or a college friend needing a home for a stint of time. For all the troubles of having three boys, I’ve decided long ago that she will forego the line for admittance into the Pearly Gates of Heaven. It had to be hard for her to let go of a son with whom she has so much in common. Alongside that, about six months prior to my departure, a baby in her care at the daycare run from our home died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Upon retrieving the eleven month old boy from his nap, she realized that he was not breathing. Her valiant attempts at resuscitation failed, leaving her permanently scarred. Subsequently, the Department of Social Services threatened her with jail time should she ever try to run a day care operation again. Unable to live off just my father’s income, my mother returned to work at an entry level position she wound up hating for menial wages. For her handling of that extremely complicated time in her life, she became a model of strength for the entire family.

Likewise, my father was born and raised in Methuen. He is the younger of two boys – there are no females in the Osgood genealogy. The son of an extremely hard-working mother and an alcoholic, but devoted father and ten years his brothers’ junior, he fended a lot for himself growing up. Compassionate yet stubborn, he cares for very little other than the people around him. He forgives, but doesn’t forget very easily and those attributes have, throughout his life, weeded out the unnecessary things and people in his life. He had an exceedingly loyal core of friends, a small but enduring set of relationships.

A master story and joke teller, my father can make a whole room look his way and pay attention to the words exiting his mouth. His enduring legacy will forever be the extent to which he’s instilled family values into my brothers and I. When he lost his job, his sons were 12, 10, and 7. To us, he was the epitome of strength with how he dealt with the situation. We were too young to see him unquestionably wonder or confide in us how the family would manage, so what we saw was a man who told us that the chips were low, but this was the time that our family needed to stick together. Family vacations may have had to be sacrificed, as with some of the other little things, but we never went without things we needed. We never saw him down. For the rest of my life, I will always see the way my father led the family out of trying times with his attitude alone. He kept us afloat by being positive and keeping in our heads the idea that if we all stick together as a family we can overcome any obstacle.

#

A honk on the way out signaled my goodbye to the neighborhood that I grew up in. I had a mini-goodbye party during the Patriots game the night before with close friends, which ended up being a late-night affair. My car was packed with a couple packs of smokes, some with a couple pre-rolled blunts, and dreams of figuring out how the west was won.