The Last Finn

By Corbert Windage

Two farm boys growing up along the banks of the Ohio River is the setting for this riveting coming-of-age tale of an idyllic life with dark undertones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corbert Windage
• Release date: Sep 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465983022

Corbert Windage

A son of Kentucky, I've traveled the world which affords the basis for most of my stories. A fan of Stephen King and old Moody Blues records (the first 8)and science fiction, I'm rarely seen without a book in hand. Basset and Blood Hounds are my close friends. If you find yourself in the 'Ville stop in and say howdy. Still trying to figure out where the muse goes when I'm blocked.

Book preview

The Last Finn

by

Corbert Windage

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 © Corbert Windage

cover photo © Wonderwolf | Dreamstime.com

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The Last Finn

by

Corbert Windage

Tommy Logan was my best friend.

I haven't seen him in twenty years, yet I would still say he was my best friend. Since graduation night, I can categorically state that everyone I have met has been little more than a good acquaintance. That probably speaks more to my character failing than to any genuine attempt by those I've come in contact with over the years to extend the hand.

The Logans were our across the road neighbors at a time when America was readying itself to emerge from the self induced, post world war coma known as the fifties. In 1959, my parents had just moved into the riverside farming community of Crufan, Indiana. Thirty-seven and a half acres, four of it woodland, situated along the Ohio River, was the setting where I would spend my formative years.

The dirt road that separated our homesteads bore the overly majestic title State Route 14. The summer winds playing over its surface often required both our mothers to resort to planning on the scale of the Normandy invasion simply to hang out the laundry. Failing to do so would be tantamount to turning our clothes and bedding into repositories of grit. Eventually, the state would get around to paving our little lifeline to the world, but I still remember missing school after a winter melt, or particularly long hard rain, simply because the road had become an unnavigable morass.

Both our homes were typical of the area, two-story clapboard, sturdily built affairs that required painting every five years, a concession to the vagaries of weather systems that swept the Ohio Valley, with a soup-to-nuts menu ranging from tornados, to near artic winters. Nevertheless, throughout the years these two houses bore up, soldiering on with a tenacity that complimented the determination of their occupants.

Tommy and I were drawn to one another like countless other kids – we saw each other across the dividing line of the road and, in the innocence that is the hallmark of the very young, went to check each other out. Same age, same grade in school, we became fast friends. His family had seniority over mine by only a month, so our exploration of the area quickly became a journey of mutual discovery.

The geography was reflected in the flatness of its Midwest designation. Static farmland, that seemingly stretched on forever held no fascination for the imagination. However, the river, that moving highway of liquidity, became an instant magnet for the curiosity of two eight years old boys. There we fished, swam, and rested on its banks watching the river and its traffic amble by. Boats and barges plied up and down the waterway with fixed purpose. Our fascination was always with the detritus, the tree,