Frayed

By Patrick Davis

Frayed, by Patrick Davis, is an autobiography written in rhyme. Following two true warriors serving fifteen years apart, it is about lost love, hardship, good times and bad, and ultimately the permanence of death. The saga begins with a boy born in rural Northwestern Pennsylvania while his uncle fights for his life on the beaches of Normandy. Luckily, the Germans couldn't stop Johnny from teaching his nephew to be a man, even with a new plate in his head. When the ghosts of war drive Johnny to finish the job that Hitler's war machine couldn't, his nephew could do nothing but follow in his footsteps. Yet war cannot cure a heavy heart and a guilty conscience. Now, in his ninth decade, Patrick realizes that the love found along the way might.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662424823

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Frayed

Patrick Davis

Copyright © 2021 Patrick Davis

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-2481-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2482-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

This story is dedicated to my recently departed, wonderful wife. May she read this from heaven.

This saga is based on true events of two soldiers that grew up in rural Northwestern Pennsylvania, an uncle and nephew who were best friends. They went to two wars, ten years apart. These are their stories before, during, and after those wars.

Pat’s beloved wife of 58 years. She passed away on March 24, 2020

Prologue

I was born in a place called Centertown in Northwestern Pennsylvania. It wasn’t a town at all really, just a dirt crossroads with a house on each corner, a machine shop, a garage with two gas pumps, and a Presbyterian church gifted their land by my grandfather.

July 1940 was a gentler time in our country’s history. My parents had made it through the depression better than most. Everyone had been humbled by the hard times and helped each other when needed, or so I was told.

Most in Centertown were Scotch Irish farmers who grew potatoes and sold them at our store, which was part of the big house where we lived. Everyone except us. My mother was Russian Orthodox, supposedly related to the Tsar, and my father a Welshman. Two complete opposites attracted to each other like mythical magnets, my father being the negative side of course. They didn’t fit into the extremely conservative Protestant community. No one worked on Sunday for fear of being shunned by the church. The ladies were jealous of each other when the preacher went to another’s house for Sunday chicken dinner.

In 1941, after my brother Danny was born, we moved three miles up the road to a house where a tragic event would ruin my soul two years later. I’ve carried the guilt with me for seventy-seven years so far. Everyone knew about the tragedy, but they never knew how it happened or that it was my fault. Until now.

As far out in the country as we were, the only friends I had to play with were down the dirt road about a half-mile or so. They were four girls, one close to my age, and the five of us became good friends. Needless to say, I learned a lot about girls playing house and doctor like kids that age do.

When I was six, I started the first grade. I wasn’t a very good student, didn’t like being inside. We went to a two-room schoolhouse still standing in a place called Millbrook. A combination of the tragedy, bad teachers, and daydreaming about being outside didn’t help my grades.

Four miles from Millbrook was a college, considered the second most conservative in America. My parents expected that I would attend that college, but my mind was warped, and my grades weren’t good enough. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to go anyway, so I went to the left, some may think a little too far. I just wanted to be away from the strict doctrine. I decided no one was going to burn in hell for not attending church.

After high school, a new life began. I saw and did wonderful things, as Howard Carter would say, and encountered the usual tragedies of life along the way, all the while carrying that terrible guilt with me.

I seemed to fall into situations, never planning any of it. I loved my country, so I enlisted in the army for three years, went to Korea with Mozley’s Rangers, ate K rations in a muddy foxhole, and then came home and ate steak with the man that will probably become the next president of the United States. In Asia I had relations with many ladies of the night and maybe even a princess. Somehow, I got home without a scratch and ended up with a wonderful job. From an apprentice to a journeyman electrician to a business representative for the union, I finally became an organizer who helped the trod-upon workers make a living. It was a great feeling to help others. I worked with and befriended the president of our union, called the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, or IBEW for short. Edwin Hill was his name. Head of our eight hundred thousand workers, many considered him one of the great labor leaders of modern times. I had top-secret clearance from the government and was involved in some cold war activity, probably because of my Russian background. I joined an organization with members the likes of George Washington.

I still found time for recreational activities. In the winter, I would ride snowmobiles up north with my good friend, Bruce, to places like the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, upstate New York, and even Canada. What a freedom that was. I fished and hunted until recently, can’t even kill a mouse anymore. I suppose my biggest release was and still is my British sports cars and restoring them. It keeps my mind off things I don’t want to think about. I race them in autocross and hill-climbing events, except of course for the two national champions that I show around the country.

One day last winter after shoveling snow from the drive—there was only about two inches, not enough for the snowblower—I came into the house exhausted and took off my boots and cold-weather clothes. I walked into the family room and plopped down in my old chair. The one all of us old men have, the one that has felt like part of you for years, the one that will never get thrown out. I started to relax and reminisce. Maybe I should let it all go, maybe I should get this terrible guilt off my mind after seventy-seven years, maybe I’d feel better. Maybe I’ll write it all down for the world to read.

I’ll do it.

This story starts one day in Northwestern Pennsylvania during May 1944 when Johnie decided to go to war. His mother cried she knew he would die, but Johnie was bound to leave old Centertown.

So off he went to live