It was quite extraordinary, I knew that I was dreaming but I felt as if I would never awake. I was quite surprised at the rush of memories ,things that were long forgotten , came to mind. The panorama my life was being played before my eyes, the colors were vivid and real, and the details , concerning what was said and who said it,were all remembered. Even the clothes worn, the weather, the smells all came to mind. What had gotten into me,was it a reaction to a medicine or some food I had eaten ? Never the less, I reveled looking at myself and my loved ones as we were when we were young, people that had passed , were before me. People that I had loved but were gone were here, now. I wanted to reach out and hold on to each one.My memory was not this good even in the best of times. My mind raced from one era to the next , from one age to another, from a small toddler to an adolescent teen and then to Sara .

I was eighteen years old when I graduated High School. Route 95 had finally progressed to where I was living, the Smiths told me, that their obligation to me would be ending , they were moving and I would have to find a place to live. The LaMonzas promised to help me in any way they could, they even suggested that I could live with them as Sara would be going away to college.

They were very proud of Sara as she was the first in their family to go to college. I could not believe that she would not be around and that I would not see her. She looked at me as only a friend but I had always wished that there could be more. So many times I wanted to tell her how I felt about her, but how could I tell her that, she was going to make something of her self while I was just a bakers helper ,soon to be without a place to live. Would I even have a job as the economy was souring ?

So I thought long and hard concerning what to do, and my decision was helped by the draft notice I received in the mail, I spoke to Mr and Mrs LaMonza and I told them I was joining the Marines . Pop had been a Marine,and there was no man I respected more than him , and I wanted to be like him.

There was a war going on, the battles and offences , the ugliness and casualties filled the news everyday , and yet all through school we did not even think , that one day we would have to leave home and fight. It's hard to imagine , that one day you are playing ball at ninth and Passyunk and then a few months later you are in the middle of a war zone in some far off land. The war definitely took its toll in the area where the LaMonzas lived . It seemed like every block had a son that was killed in action.Many homes placed a photo of their son in their windows. In the lobby of the High school I attended there were bronze plaques that had the names of those who had attended school there and had given their lives for their country, and yet we never thought that one day it could be our names on these bronze plaques .

The weeks flew by and it was time to leave , it was a soft summer day that I hugged and kissed the LaMonzas goodbye , these people were my friends and my family , they gave me a gift of a watch which I have to this day. As I walked out the door , Sara came out and kissed me on the cheek and hugged me, she whispered in my ear to please come home . I walked to the bus that would take me to Recruit Depot at Parris Island South Carolina , this feeling entered my stomach , and passed through my chest and became a lump in my throat and I didn't want to leave but I kept going, looking behind me every few feet until I could no longer see their home.

Life on Parris Island hard ,but I was used to a spartan existence living with the Smiths, and as long as you followed orders , there were no problems , just like home, I thought. There were some guys who could not cope, you could hear them cry in the dead of night, nobody made fun of them as we all knew what they were feeling. My time passed there uneventful.I had been trained to be a fighting machine but my heart often thought of home, and of Sara.

Training was over in December and my platoon was sent to Camp LeJeune which was located in North Carolina, there were rumours circulating that we would be shipped out to California in the coming weeks, and from there possibly overseas. I spent Christmas on the base, we went to Church and then we opened the cards and gifts we received from home, Sara had written me many times from the college she was attending, Those letters I read several times over. I received a two day pass for the weekend which over the new Years holiday,for those who lived close , they were going to make an attempt to go home , I looked at the bus schedule for Philly, it would be at least a twelve hour bus ride and the first bus scheduled to leave was at 6:30 am on the thirty first, the return trip left Philadelphia at 6:00 am the next day, I would have to be back at 2100 hours which would be 9 pm New Years day, it would be cutting it very close and if everything worked out, I would only have a few hours home. I decided to do it

In the early hours of winter, here I am, waiting at the bus station in Jacksonville, looking to the north. It is 6:15 a.m. and I climb on the bus with other people. I imagine there are some people returning to their homes after the Christmas holidays. The bus driver swipes my ticket and gives it back to me. I look for empty seats in front, but there are none. Only seats at the back are available. I sit in the back next to the window, so that I can see the houses, farms and fields and towns that have no names. The traffic on the roads is very sparse, I imagine that many people are sleeping in today. I am so used to city life that I could not imagine living in some of these sleepy little towns.

We finally reach route 95 , there are only a few portions of the super highway that are not completed yet, one part is the area where I lived, they were just beginning to tear down the row homes and factories that stood in it's path when I left. I wondered if the Smith's house was still standing ? I really felt no connection to the Smith's . they never wrote me nor did I expect them to. I was anxious to see the LaMonzas and especially Sara.They meant more to me than anything in this world. I was in love with Sara though I never told her.

We were only on the road for a few hours when the bus began hesitating and belching blue smoke down the highway, the bus driver took the next exit ramp and coasted down to the bottom of the ramp where we came to a complete halt. There was nothing but woodlands and fields as far as the eye could see. The bus driver announced end of the line folks ! A loud audible groan came from the passengers. One guy asked out loud , "What do we do now ?" , the bus driver replied that we would have to wait for the state police to come by and radio in for another bus. Now normally I am very quiet but I asked if there were a gas station around where there could be a phone ?, The bus driver just mumbled his reply, and said, "that if I wanted to find one , go right ahead and be my guest , but he was staying right here and he would wait for the police".As I made my way down the steps and out the door , I told him I would take a little walk around and see if there was any phones nearby.

I looked east and west and I just started doing double time towards the sun which was still low in the sky. I must have ran for a half hour not seeing anyone on the road, I came around a bend and I spied a small house in the distance across a field, I made my way there , running on the soft clay like soil, hoping all the time that there would be somebody home. Knocking on the door and calling out hello, there was no response, my hope of getting home were growing dimmer as I walked away from the door, suddenly I heard someone ask , "What do y'all want?, this stopped me in my tracks, an old man was halfway behind the door, I called out to him that my bus broke down up at the highway , did he have a phone I could use ?, He repeated my words, , "a phone ?" , "No no we don't have a phone" he said in a slow southern drawl. Wiping the sleep from his eyes with his long slender fingers, he then said, "But,... my son has a phone, let me get dressed and I'll take you there. He came out after a few minutes and we went around to the back of the house where there was a 1940 Chevy coupe that if it ran would surprise the heck out of me. But it kicked right over as soon as he turned the key.

We pulled up to his son's house which was no more than a shack. The old man beeped the car horn and his son came out . Seeing my uniform his son called out "Semper Fi", it turned out he was an ex Marine, we called in the broken down bus,and he said we will give you a ride back to the highway. As we drove he told me of his time served . I told him of my home and the people that I wanted to see, I told him they did not expect me home. He said , " why don't I take you on up to Emporia ,Virginia , it's only about 45 minutes up the road and you can catch a bus to Philly right away. " I thanked him profusely , and I left a few dollars on his car seat in appreciation when I left .My journey was on again as the bus for Philadelphia was boarding when we arrived. Good luck he called out to me, God knows , I was going to need it.

Around Washington we ran into some bad weather as it was raining pretty hard and it slowed up traffic pretty considerably, I was hours behind and I started to wonder when I did reach home would there only be a few hours before I had to leave . It was just about 9 pm when we reached Baltimore and more people boarded, about a half hour outside Philly the highway ended and we followed an alternative route past the rubble of brick and steel, left overs from the destruction of homes and factories.

It was 15 minutes to midnight when we pulled into the bus terminal on Arch street, there was a chance that Sara and her friends were in a cafe that they always went to on Drury Lane, they had music and dancing there on the weekends , it was on a small alley like street tucked away behind the Wanamaker's department store .

Running as fast as I could and trying my best to dodge the puddles of slush that lined the streets, I made it to the door of the club with 5 minutes to spare before midnight. I was a mess, in need of a shave and a change of clothing I entered the dark night club and scanned the room for Sara. It was crowded and loud with the revelers celebrating the New Year. I made my way through the crowd looking everywhere for her. On the juke box someone had played a Sinatra tune called " Softly as I leave you" , as the old year slowly passed in to the new. Some people sat down as people took to the floor for a slow dance. I turned to my left and across the room , there she was ,there was Sara standing near the wall , she was wearing a white lace blouse who's collar hugged her neck and the delicate fabric flared at the arms but was narrow at the wrist, her long dark hair framed her olive skin and dark piercing eyes. I crossed the room and she turned, a look of surprise registered on her face as I stood in front of her. She was jostled into my arms by the movement of the crowd. I took her into my arms, it was the first time I ever held her, it was the first time I ever kissed her, it was the first time I told her ,I loved her.

br>Suddenly, this memory or dream , whatever it was I could not say, started to fade. I wanted to stay there with her but everything went black until I could only hear the faint sound of music .