“For half a century, I lived with memories that rippled through my body like the fear placed there by a woman who chose to alter the trajectory of a little boy’s life.
Young Jac takes you on a long and winding road inside the mind of a child, revealing the devastating impact of what it means to live through the unlivable.
Jac, now a retired truck driver, husband, and father, guides you gently through the arduous task of reconciling the fear and horrible memories that racked his mind for decades. The road to redemption is filled with joy, sorrow, uncertainty, anger, confusion, and now peace.
This book is for anyone living in silence. These words are for you. Join Jac as he pays homage to the joy of trucking and the endless black ribbon that kept him from dying in the dark.
“For half a century, I lived with memories that rippled through my body like the fear placed there by a woman who chose to alter the trajectory of a little boy’s life.
Young Jac takes you on a long and winding road inside the mind of a child, revealing the devastating impact of what it means to live through the unlivable.
Jac, now a retired truck driver, husband, and father, guides you gently through the arduous task of reconciling the fear and horrible memories that racked his mind for decades. The road to redemption is filled with joy, sorrow, uncertainty, anger, confusion, and now peace.
This book is for anyone living in silence. These words are for you. Join Jac as he pays homage to the joy of trucking and the endless black ribbon that kept him from dying in the dark.
PROLOGUE
THE JINGLING KEYS & NEW BEGINNING
The summer of ’75 hung heavy with promise, a faint shimmer of hope trailing behind a four‑year‑old boy named Jac whose world was only beginning to take shape. Before Sherwood Park rose from the dirt, before life grew complicated, there was a golden moment of pure joy — the kind that rattles your bones and sends your heart racing like a jackrabbit.
My mom had met a trucker. He wore a western shirt stretched tight across his broad chest, cowboy boots thumping like thunder, and a heavy belt with keys that jingled like a promise: maybe this time we’d be a whole family.
He wasn’t my biological father, but he was the first man who felt like a dad. We stood in an open field, grass brushing my ankles under a wide Alberta sky. He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and gave me a head start.
“Go on, kid. Run.” His voice warm as engine oil.
I took off. My legs pumped, sneakers slapping the dirt as laughter bubbled out of me. Behind me, the rhythmic rattle of his keys grew louder. His boots closed the distance, the sound filling the air as he chased me across the field.
I laughed harder, half terrified and half thrilled, until his hands scooped me up and lifted me high into the sky. The world spun, and my cheeks ached from smiling. For the first time, I felt safe — held by someone who wasn’t going anywhere. Soon after, he became my dad, marrying Mom in a quiet ceremony that felt like a door swinging open.
Money was never an issue with him. Dad worked hard and always found a way to make things happen. One day, he pulled up in a red Datsun, its white leather seats gleaming in the sun like something out of a magazine.
I climbed into the back seat and pressed my nose against the leather, breathing in its clean scent — a far cry from Mom’s old barrel‑cab taxi, with its worn seats smelling of stale coffee and cigarette smoke.
That taxi had been our life before Dad, ferrying Mom and me through late nights, picking up the same drunken passenger, Ken, from the same tavern. He always smiled when he saw me, eyes bleary but kind. “Good kid… good kid,” he’d slur before leaning against the window as we drove through the dark streets.
Dad changed everything. After the wedding, he took Mom to Leon’s Furniture.
“Get what you want, darlin’,” he said.
Mom’s eyes grew wide. I bounced from one gold‑winged couch to another, the ’70s fabric scratchy under my hands, as she picked out an entire apartment’s worth of furniture. It was like watching her dream in color — each piece a brick in the home we were building together.
Not every memory from those years was golden. Between the ages of four and seven, I sometimes stayed with a family friend named Jane. Later, her name would leave a bitter taste in my mouth. A dark two‑week incident left scars I couldn’t yet name, lingering like a jagged shadow — though it didn’t erase the good.
Some of my brightest memories came from riding in Dad’s semi‑truck. I stretched out across a board laid over the seats while the cab rumbled beneath us. Sometimes we pulled into the rendering plant.
The smell was terrible, thick and sour in the air, but it didn’t matter. I was with Dad, and that was enough.
Life around my parents had a way of bringing big characters into my small world. One night in the late seventies, when I was about five or six, one of those characters turned out to be a legend.
My parents took me to see Johnny Cash. The barn was a converted country music hall about an hour north of Edmonton, Alberta. The place had that perfect rustic charm: tables made from sand‑blasted whiskey barrels, topped with bright gingham cloths, arranged in half‑circle partitions that created intimate little pockets.
It felt close and personal — not like a big arena, more like a family gathering where legends showed up. Johnny Cash played there twice in those years, and one of those nights stands out crystal clear. He met my mom and dad — maybe backstage, maybe near the stage — and I remember him lifting me up in his arms.
The Man in Black himself, gentle and kind, holding a little kid like me. Magical.
His son, John Carter Cash, had been born in 1970, almost exactly my age. Maybe that’s why the memory feels tied to family and connection. There was another boy my age traveling with the Cash family. I still remember that deep voice filling the barn:
“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,”
and the crowd packed in tight.
Locals say he loved the spot enough to show up unannounced for one of the gigs. For a kid that young, being lifted by him while he chatted with my parents is one of those once‑in‑a‑lifetime moments that stays forever.
A moment burning bright in my mind, like the decorated driver award belt and keys or the smell of new leather.
These were the fragments of my early years — keys ringing out, vivid and ingrained forever; leather seats; gold couches; and a father’s love lifting me skyward.
Pieces of a life beginning, stitched together by a boy learning joy, even as shadows crept close.
When I opened and began reading Shadows, Roads, and Redemption by Jac Winters, I suppose I was expecting a trucker’s memoir. After all, Winter’s mentions his trucking past in his bio and it is referenced within the synopsis. The tile also gives rise to thinking this would be one long road trip. The book is not a trucking memoir – far from it. If anything, it is a memoir focused around trauma, specifically that related to sexual abuse.
Several things struck me about the book. There was the subtle, understated repetition of certain things that appeared early on and created a tethering to the young child, e.g., keys, leather, truck, engine. These features cropped up when young Jack is recounting a happy memory with his new dad and his meeting Johnny Cash. I liked that this early chapter cemented the main story in time, and also gave us context relating to Jac’s background, namely that he was initially from a broken home until his mother remarried. Despite his new family, it was never really made clear why he spent so much time with his sitter, Jane, at her house.
The book jumps back and forth in time, but introduces the sexual abuse early on. It then intersperses these episodes with moments of reflection during his adult life. These reflections are a tough read because they are open, honest, yet still raw. They very much look at Winter’s childhood through the eyes of a broken child. He relives those moments, speaks of his silent obedience, and wanting to please his abuser. Equally, he speaks as a healing adult who is able to accept his experience for what it was. The narrator is firm in his knowledge that he was abused, why it continued, and why the circumstances surrounding it led to his reframing of certain adults and behaviors as ‘normal’.
The revelations that unfold are like whispered confessions. Winters trusts us as his confidant, but not fully, which would explain why he is not overly graphic with the details. It also serves to draw us in closer because as a reader, we sometimes have to read between the lines of the cloaked talk to decipher wat is going on.
The title is a little deceiving. By the time I realized what the book was about, and was aware of how many episodes of abuse we were going to be exposed to, it was clear that there was not going to be a clear redemption. I feel like I am still waiting for a conclusion but at the same time, recognizing that it isn’t going to come any time soon because Winters is still in a healing process.
The writing was easy to read in the sense that it does not use words that have you reaching for the dictionary. In fact, the language could be understood by children. Again, this device adds to the innocence of the young Winters we were introduced to. The telling over the showing creates distance for the reader despite the confidant role we play that I noted above.
All in all, it was fairly well written. It maintained a consistent tone and it gave voice to ordeals that still trouble the author. Giving my overall critique consideration, I rate the book four out of five stars.