I always thought about visiting my dads childhood house. The place where he spent the first 18 years of his 63 year long life. In a little Town called Rockland, deep in the northern parts of New York. My dad grew up in a small community, they lived in ghettos and everyone knew everyone. His town was unique because he lived in the urban area. It was a small City surrounded by fields and farms. The thing that separates my dad from everyone else is that he was a 3x State Champion Wrestler at 170 lbs. Even with the talent and skill he had he wasn't able to attend college. He was a State champion the first 3 years of high school but the week before states his senior year he got involved in some trouble. Long story short he was accused of being involved in a shooting but no one ever found the gun so the charges against him were dropped. But since he made headline news and everything, the NCAA didn't want him in any division schools. So after his wrestling career being ruined, he was forced to go to the Marines because his grades weren't sufficient enough for college. Anyways the reason I'm taking this 16 hour long road trip from Durham, NC is to see what his hometown is like since he never took the family back. As I arrive to his old address I see what appers to be a skeleton of what was once a house. Tall grass, boarded windows, broken glass and other such things that are evidence of abandonment. I walked up the rotten and creaking front steps and looked at the door frame, cause nothing else was there. I proceeded into the house with caution, announcing my arrival into every room and walking slowly. After making sure there was no one else there I started to dig through the rummage. I discovered old pictures, ripped clothes, cracked glass, and torn books. From there I went back upstairs to what used to be my dads room. Half a bed frame, a dresser with half of the drawers missing, a broken mirror and a closet full of miscellaneous items. I dusted off a section of the floor and sat down. I looked around the room and looked at all the things and tried to envision what it was like to live here. What it was like to be my dad and how many friends he probably had over, how many girls he probably snuck in and how many times my grandmother locked him in here for talking back. After a while I stood back up and walked over to the closet. I started going through the stuff. After pulling out a couple of items i discovered a metal pole that was sticking out through the wall. I started to pull on it, it's budged a little. "lord please don't let this house collapse if I pull this out" I said to myself. I pulled out the pole and I heard a thumping sound in the wall, as if it was holding something and it fell. I held out my flash light into the hole and saw something shimmer back..something metal. I reached my hand in to get it but It was too far. So I did what I had to and I made the hole bigger, Then I reached my hand in there and by my fingertips I pulled out the object. I couldn't believe my eyes.. It was a gun! But was it THE gun? After analyzing it I realized that the bullets were the same caliber that were used in the shooting that occurred my dads senior year! Was it true?! Did he really shoot or help shoot somebody? I guess we'll never know, because now I have met my word requirement:)
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