1,000 Words: Three Wheels and Hope

I am not a photographer, at least not a trained photographer.

Having spent eight years at a community newspaper, though, I picked up a few tricks here and there, and over time, I’ve managed to capture a few images I’ve thought were worth sharing. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to post a few in a new series I’m calling “1,000 Words.” I hope to post the image, maybe tell a bit about the shot itself and, if applicable, a story behind the image.

And so, here’s the first image in “1,000 Words,” a shot taken at my parents’ house in Powell County, Kentucky, while I was home visiting a couple of years ago. I grew up surrounded by trees (actually, it was more of a scaled-down forest), with neighbors within walking distance but not shouting distance. I took this for granted, right up until I owned my own home in Georgetown.

Now, I realize how fortunate I was to be surrounded by such natural beauty, including the wonderfulness of silence. At Mom and Dad’s house, there are no trains, no semis, no manmade outside noise, save for the occasional weekend rumbles from the dragstrip a few miles up the road.

I often miss my childhood, those carefree days filled with baseball and basketball and bike-riding and video games and anything and everything having nothing to do with work. Going home floods me with those memories, as I recall running around the yard, those trees doing their best impressions of Stormtroopers or Skeletor’s minions or whatever other evil henchmen they happened to be portraying at the time.

I wish I could say with certainty that I once rode around the yard on the tricycle pictured in this image, but given Mom and Dad’s taste toward antiques, it’s just as likely, if not more, they found this three-wheeler at a yard sale somewhere. Either way, the rust it collects is much like my childhood, slipping away a bit more each day into adulthood. The tricycle is sad, perhaps a bit haunting.

But then there are the flowers, popping up just enough to make your realize there’s hope. You’re born, you play, you grow up, you grow old, you die, and somehow, it all just keeps repeating, particularly through the memories you create between the steps “born” and “die.”

Yeah, it’s a rusted tricycle that might not even be mine, sitting against a tree surrounded by some random flowers. Or it might be my childhood, my present, my future, all in the sun, resting quietly and comfortably in Powell County.