The Owl

The 60s was a decade marked by its contradictions — from the rebellion, experimentation with drugs, and the embracing of free love to the backdrop of iconic events like Woodstock. However, it wasn’t all peace and love. The Vietnam war raged on, sparking protests and deepening the generational divide. Parents watched in bewilderment as their older children adopted increasingly liberal values. Hair was grown long, bell bottoms worn, drugs consumed.

These years were a whirlwind of emotions and events: the tension between cops and hippies, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. Waves of idealism countered by feelings of alienation, and transformative social movements, many of which were broadcast on black and white TV screens. Color if you were lucky.

I was nine years old, often hearing whispers that the world was on the brink of collapse. Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis and Bobby Kennedy gunned down in Los Angeles only two months later. Cities were burning.

Yet, for my brother, and our friends it was the best of times.

Growing up in Haddonfield, New Jersey we had only a vague idea of the history of this small town or its place in a world that was apparently crumbling. What then, would be left for us?

We knew better the stories of ghosts, haunted forests and bottomless lakes that could swallow us alive. We built forts in the forests, had rock fights, rode bikes down hills like maniacs, and slept outside during the summer.

Free from helicopter parents and any restrictions other than “be home for dinner” we were left to roam. And roam we did. Still, as explorers we had a lot to learn as one day we ventured into another realm.

There was a field of tall, wheat-colored grass behind a friend’s house that stretched beyond the horizon. And there was an old barn there. A red barn and an owl lived in it.

On summer evenings when we were out catching fireflies, we’d see the owl fly out of the barn. He was huge, with an oval face and black eyes and silent as the grave.

A barn owl. A winged, ghost-white apparition.

What a life he must have led, a king in his castle with a field full of mice, rabbits and snakes and beyond that the great ancient forests that surrounded Haddonfield.

Did the owl know that field was a portal, too?

Further, deeper, the field revealed back yards, and a scattering of houses. It seemed very far but probably wasn’t, but when you’re a kid your sense of time and space is distorted.

We waded through the waist-high grass, hearing the sound of people talking and laughing, probably drinking ice cold Miller High Life, grilling steaks, the aroma drifting from shiny Weber kettles.

We slipped past the backyard barbecues and eventually emerged upon a strange street, filled with kids that we’d never seen before. I can still remember the feeling, wondering who they were, could I beat them up, would they beat me up? It was primal. Tribal.

We went back the next night and the next.

One night on that street there were some older kids, high school age, leaning up against fast cars and listening to music. No one said anything to us, we might as well have been invisible. There was a girl that we walked past that I couldn’t take my eyes off.

She was pretty, maybe fourteen. I was only nine but had already flipped over her.

Throughout the summer my friends and I went back many times and explored more, found new streets, got in and out of various forms of trouble but I never saw her again.

Summer faded.

That autumn I went to a Haddonfield High football game with my dad and some of his friends. We were sitting in the stands waiting for the game to begin. I heard laughter, caught a glimpse of a bright smile. It was the girl.

The girl that I’d seen on that street was sitting only a few feet away, chewing bubble gum. She was sitting with her friends. I wanted so much to meet her, to tell her that I remembered her-not that it would matter-but I felt compelled. On that golden day, a golden chance lost.

The years passed. I sometimes thought about what might have happened to her. What was her name? Did she move away or get married and stay in Haddonfield? Is she still alive? It’s possible. How could such a brief encounter have such an impact? Yet, it did.

And I think about the owl.

I want to know that he’s still there, that the barn hasn’t been razed and the field carpeted with blacktop. If memories persist could they not manifest a reality, perhaps on some parallel plane?

Yes, the barn is still there. And so is the owl, watching over all that belongs to him.

The fields, the forests and the night. Forever and ever.