The Boneyard

By Xlibris US

Represented by an eliphant skull on the cover this book is a collection of short stories from time long past but never forgotten. The author paints a simple but colorful and imaginative picture of rural youth in Pennsylvania and beach life in Delaware. The stories are universally relatable for anyone who has ever been a child, had an adventure, a young love, or a loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781503515345

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Jason Bostaph.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/21/2014

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Contents

1.   Treetops Like Tinted Glass

2.   The Willow

3.   The Least of These

4.   Momentary Fascination

5.   Funeral for a Scott

6.   Two Afternoon Names

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Treetops Like Tinted Glass

S ALINA, PENNSYLVANIA, IS a small town on the side of a mountain overlooking the Kiskiminetas River. Down on the bank of the river is the Salina brick factory and shipping yards. The factory and the train tracks that run through its heart were the original purpose for the town’s existence; they are long out of commission. The factory has been abandoned for decades, and in my entire life growing up in Salina, I could count on one hand the trains I heard squeaking and grinding down the rusted tracks. It doesn’t matter though. Thanks to Henry Ford and the transportation era, the men of the town branched out, finding jobs in other towns, in other states, in places where they did not live and could not sleep.

The town is situated on the slope of the mountain so that the factory is on the river, the elementary school and baseball field are on the summit, and everything else is in between. If you were to walk from the factory to the school, the first street you would come to is Main Street. On Main Street, you would find the fire hall, the post office, the Salina Inn, and Cormay’s Grocery. The next street on your way up the hill and the last street before you get to the school is Stewart Street. I lived in a white house with a small front yard on Stewart Street.

In the corner of the front yard was the blue spruce pine, under which I would find earwigs in the fallen needles. In the backyard was the swing set, a manufactured piece of Americana, which was more or less worthless to me and almost never used accordingly to its purpose. Surrounded by a land of trees—oak, maple, elm, hemlock, sycamore, spruce, birch, dogwood, and my favorite, the weeping willow—there was little or zero need for a swing set, which had limited uses and no ability to camouflage.

The backyard had several large pine trees that were excellent for climbing as long you stayed close toward the trunk. They offered a perfect hiding place for any occasion and had so many twisting, turning branches that you could climb them in different ways each time although everyone quickly established their own favorite route.

The neighbor to the left was Mr. Carnahan, and unfortunately, most of the good climbing pines were in his backyard. Mr. Carnahan was an exceedingly grumpy man, and I was never able to figure out if he hated children or just the world in general, but he strictly forbade me or any child to climb his trees. This is something I will never understand. How can you tell a child that he cannot climb a tree? That is like telling your son not to get holes in the knees of his jeans or forbidding him to spit. These are rules no earthy creature has the right to set or enforce. He said his reasons were that he did not want us breaking the branches. He telling us to stay away from his trees was his solution to a problem that did not exist. Breaking the branches to a good climbing tree was about as logical in my mind as mixing the broccoli with all the other food on my plate, thus ruining everything that could have been enjoyable. His reasoning was absurd and he was setting rules he had no right to set. So I climbed his trees nearly every single day and nearly every single day I got caught. But these particular trees were such good climbing trees that never once did I question whether or not it was worth the trouble.

The neighbors to our right were the Shaffers. They had two children who were nearly always dirty and barefoot and very rowdy. Nobody in town really knew the Shaffers more intimately than a passing hello, and there was some speculation as to their sanity. Mr. Shaffer sat on his