Clarence Barnes

Words Clarence Barnes

PART OF MY LIFE I remember the time on Curies street when I was a kid and where a part of me still is. That was the first place we lived when my grandmother moved us from Mississippi to Omaha. One of my last memories of Bessie was seeing her in the yard watching the cars as they traveled past our home. We thought that she was probably wondering where they are coming from and where they are going to and probably remembering a time in her life when she traveled. Like when, she brought us to this last leg of our journey from Mississippi. We believe that she knew that was her last trip and that she will never be able to go on another one. She had rust on her now and her blue paint had faded and the life that had been in her wheels where gone, but she would still run for me and my brothers and cousins. We used to sit in her and imagine driving to all of the places that she had been. Sometimes she wouldn't be a car, but a space ship that would take us to the moon and search for aliens on other worlds. And other times she would be a time machine and take us into the past, so we could be knights. The day they took Bessie away part of our childhood went with her. We cried.