It was the perfect summer weather. Warm with a light breeze and you can feel the storm getting closer. The wind carried the smell of rain through the air with small gusts. You know the rain storms you'd go run around in because it was fun and it would feel great on your skin trying to wash away the sweat of play. Summer storms are always my favorite part. They are full of life with lots of charge sparking from mother nature's dancing ballets of light and sound. The different smells that come through the wafts of air like the tree's, the grass, the neighbors grilling, and some other natural smells I can't quite put into detail. The joys of living in a small town with lots of wooded forest-like areas, you run into plenty of new smells and sounds but you eventually figure it out or hope you never do. I've always felt more comfortable and at peace during a summer storm. It's like I can always count on the storm to do just exactly what it should do.
My Name is Jason Robert Ward but I go by J.R. I just turned 16 not too long ago. I'm an only child and I live in a small town called Porter with a post office, a volunteer fire department, one church on the main road and a gas station. Everything else is farm houses, ranches, and the all too nasty smelling chicken farms. There is a good distance between them with lots of land. All that aside we have some pretty friendly neighbors and like all places we also have a few bad apples. You get that great welcoming Southern American vibe from everyone you meet because they have never met a stranger in their entire lives. The down side of a small town like mine is that no matter which way you go it takes half an hour to get to any kind of civilization. If you need anything you better make sure you get it all in one go because if you forget something you usually don't get it until the next visit to the Wal-Mart in the next town. I am a little partial living with wide open spaces and room for exploratory roaming.
I live in a nice little ranch style house with three bedrooms, an office, kitchen, and a huge living room. We have roughly thirty to forty acres of land with a creek at the end and it connects my grandparents land to ours. There is enough room on our land to actually run a ranch but dad prefers to work at a job that doesn't cause us to struggle the way he did growing up. My mom did talk my dad into letting me have some animals. I have a few dogs that are half wolf. Found them as pups while hunting with grandpa. I have a few pigs, a couple horses and a cow. All of which I acquired from my grandparents and of course I had to join FFA to keep them. Grandpa thought it was important to learn that stuff. It's just my parents and me so there is a lot of room for just us three here in this house. Sometimes I wish I had siblings and other times I thank the heavens I don't.
Most of the time during the summer I only see people my age at church on Sunday or when we go to town. We all congregate in the back of the church so we don't disturb the older folks in the front with our chattering. Usually if we are too loud one of our parents will shoot us that look, where you know if you don't quiet down now they are gonna hand you your butt six ways til next Sunday. Church usually lasts about four or five hours depending on the Sunday. Children's church first, then fellowship, after we all sing, some play instruments, and last we sit there and listen to the sermon the preacher has prepared for us, although most of us kids aren't really paying attention. Every third Sunday we have dinner after church and everyone brings something so we all have enough to eat. My mom usually brings dessert and it's always something chocolate.
Last Sunday was probably the most exciting one ever. Midway through the service you could hear all the volunteer fire departments pagers going off outside. It was the loudest and most annoying sound possibly ever heard. There are about ten young adult men and one woman in the fire department that go to this church. Our department covers three small towns in between the bigger towns. At this point they rush out, turn off the pagers and decide who is going to the call, which it's just a handful. I always wanted to be a firefighter growing up. The rush of a fire and the adrenaline of hurrying to go put it out. My dad said he volunteered one year and all they ever did was put out grease fires in old ladies kitchens. I heard recently that they have been putting out hill fires and hay bales. Someone has been setting them here lately and we did have a burn ban going on because of the heat and not enough rain. I'm sure the fire marshal can't wait to catch whoever it is.
My grandpa used to be the volunteer chief of the fire department. He was getting older so he'd try not to go on too many calls but he would always go on the big important one's. I remember one Christmas Eve when I was rather small my grandpa and dad went on a call and grandma came to sit with us while they went to put the fire out. Found out later that it was a hay fire, which if you didn't know you can't really put out a hay fire. You just have to spread it out and wait for it to stop burning. Grandpa told me if you don't make sure it's out it could spark back up and spread further. Grandpa was always teaching me interesting facts. He was really great and I loved the fact that he and grandma lived just a couple miles down the road. I'd spend hours with him during the summer and weekends unless I had a game or some other activity. They had a farm house with lots of room and never knew why until I found out my dad had two siblings. My Aunt died overseas and the other ran off after he graduated. We don't ever talk about them though.