The Idea that came to Life

It was as though I had a light bulb moment and the ideas came rushing in like a waterfall at Niagara Falls. It was the epiphany and once started, it just would not stop.

I lingered in my thoughts and was very aware that I had been thinking about this for many years prior to this moment of actually putting the ideas onto paper. I sat there in my bed for the longest time and pondered the thoughts as they played across my mind like a drive-in movie. It was frightening at first, then it became more apparent that I was needing to make this a reality. I was afraid of the cost and the labor, the time needed to complete this passionate project that I wanted to do for so long.

Then the plans were there like an invisible partner helping me put this into motion. First the list of things I would need to get to then start the actual blueprints and the rough draft model. Time, sweat and tears, along with those who I wanted to ask to help me out either physically or financially. I had many people that I wanted to honor and allow them to be recognized for all the many years of friendship and willingness to show my appreciation for all they had done to make this possible.

I looked at the clock radio on my bedside nightstand, which showed glowing red numbers at 2 am. I was definitely not going to wake anyone at this time since I was wanting to go into the kitchen, bringing with me the necessary items to begin the writing down of all the figures and drawings that would one day become something more solid for all the world to see, or at least for starters here in the small town of Rockwell, Georgia. It would be seen by the many residence who were living here or who had returned here to live after the last war fought by the US. It was a town of mostly aging and elderly individuals who were ready to settle down, raise a family and then when the time came to meet their maker.

Then the idea was settled upon for a statue to be created and placed in a neutral location of town that all who passed by would see it. Not only them but outsiders from the highway that was about 1 mile or so from the edge of town. It would be seen by them and hopefully enough would let the outside world, which include the bigger cities like Waston, Derrick, and Judging Creek to the north, along with Beehive, Drastic and Beulah to the east. It would later be noticed after word spread, that the bigger cities to the west and south, like Glamour, Resting, and Placid would then come to visit us to see the statue. But hard times had hit a lot of the bigger cities not allowing many to have the necessary transportation to travel long distances.

The ones who were able to be were mostly the very well to do and rich. Those people now a days had separated themselves from the rest who were the less fortunate. The statue was meant to be a symbol of recognition for all who had suffered and lost much. I felt this would allow our own town of Rockwell to be reconsidered as a worthy enough town to be reconnected to the rest of the state of Georgia. We had been parted from the state inner circle long ago and no one had checked on us in many decades. Now was time to make things come about in full circle.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, deciding on what the statue would be made of and how to use the simplest of methods to construct such a statue that would be big enough yet not too heavy so that we could move it to the location to be decided on for the final resting place. It had to weather resistant. It had to be able to withstand the various insects and elements that may take its toll on something that was going to be like a center piece on a banquet table at a senior prom. It was meant to stand tall and proud long after the town's last living residence passed on into the great beyond.

I was not sure where to start this project. I was a former blueprint draftsman having worked in building most all the structures that stood in our town and the train depot that once connected us to the rest of the state was the earliest built structure to do that. The memories were still vivid about and during the time it was being built, first as a small yet fully functional depot to hold 40 people, waiting for the train, then later a larger depot that could hold a quarter of the train pedestrians of Grand Central Station in New York. It was with much pride and joy that when we finished the project in 1946, the ribbon across the doorway was cut and the champagne flowed like a stream.

I had to stop daydreaming before I lost my train of thought at the idea of the statue to honor the town. It was bits and pieces, here and there, but it was about to come together like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle being completed after several months while passing the time away. The statue was becoming more clearer as I drew many pictures and was looking at photos, some worn and yellowing, some more recent, or they were more recent to me but not within the last month or so. I looked over old journals and papers that played a motion picture in my mind of the years of prosperity and the years of drought, and both looked odd together as they blended and blurred. The moments came and went. The ideas from the moments were mentally taking shape and forming what would become a reality and a new hope for the town of Rockwell.

It was then I was startled by the alarm clock on the stove that I forgot I had set. I had not stopped that even after retiring. I was looking at the time which announced 4 am, which was still too early to announce to anyone my statue project idea and yet I was very excited by the idea(s) which would give a reason to become useful again even at this age, for me would be 87 years coming May 12th. I then arose to walk over to the kitchen window facing our former Main Street, noticed the sun was coming up over the mountains off in the distance. Then once more memories of hunting in those mountains along with all the fishing trips up by the lake and the camping trips that were set up in various areas of clearing that were once overgrown with trees and brush, along with debris from the flood of 1935, that almost wiped out the town's existence.

We had lost many of the founders who had started the first buildings and settlements that grew into what was to become a thriving metropolis. Then the others married or left and returned, as if they were drawn back here by someone or something that wanted them to help this to become a great place to work and live. Now it was with a sad heart that this had returned to what it started out as, bland and vague. I shook my head as I moved away from the window and returned to my kitchen table to continue what I had started. I was shocked at what I saw and wondered had I been absent while these plans, blueprints had been written and scrawled onto the large paper like a new development was being put into place somewhere in town for the first time since the separation.

The statue was to be constructed at the location, over by the center of town where Main Street and Wisdom Street intersected. It was to be a statue that would honor all the world over. Whether it was to be seen by few or by many, it was to be symbolic in what it truly meant and was to represent a form of unity not felt by many for once in its own lifetime. To withstand anything and to bring a smile to one's face when seeing it, whether it was for the first time or the 50th time, it would give a sense of happiness and relief, so that not one person will have been forgotten.

Then I looked again and noticed the clock on the stove was now showing 8 am, which means that most of the residence were stirring awake and they would flock to my house in hopes of my being able to figure out what I had decided to build. One by one they came around, first the nearest neighbors, then most were brought in by those who lived furthest out from us. It was an amazement when I placed the blueprints on a large blackboard standing erect in the front yard, then turning on the screens around the blackboard was able to show most of the closest people the idea that had started out as an idea in my dreams and in my head, until I was abruptly awaken. I shook with delight at the idea and was about to announce it to one and all. Then the shot rang out.

I fell backward and off the stage that was where I once stood. Someone had decided that my idea was too farfetched and instead let me be told before I laid still that the idea would never become a reality.

I was laying there as my other self-watched in horror at the idea that never was to be. It was as though someone was preventing me from realizing I had passed on long ago and would never be able to make this a reality. The statue was one of my last thoughts before I had died and this was a wakeup call that my life ceased to exist in the real world back when we humans still had the upper hand.

Good night to one and to All!!!!!!