ReaLife IV

WATER SEEKS ITS OWN LEVEL

I grew up out in Flashlight City. That’s not the real name of the place, but people who live in the area call it that. As far back as before World War 11 it has been known as Flashlight City. It’s different than most places, but I couldn’t tell you why. I live there, and I can’t see the forest for the trees. For people like me it’s a light on a hill. A place that you can call home. Most people that leave always come back home sooner or later. Flashlight City is located up the hill from Cactus Valley. The road that runs up to our little corner of the world is Cactus Road.

The place got its name from the time right after the Great Depression. You see two children got lost out in the valley. Fearing the worse the residents burned tires through the night and launched a search party with flashlights, searchlights, and flares. The children weren’t found. They seemed to have vanished from the earth that night. To this day it’s still a mystery that puzzles people in the area.

After that day every year on the day the children vanished the people in these parts pay their respects by shining a thousand flashlights in the sky. We also have two army surplus search lights. At sundown everyone for miles lays on their car or truck horn for ten minutes.

On that day we have the high school bands play, and we honor the men that fought in all the wars to keep America free. From a distance Flashlight City looks like a star that has come down to the earth to touch the people here. It takes place every August the 15^th from sunrise until all hours of the night. We have dances, and dinners, and they have a tire burning after dark. Then after ten at night the people stand in silence watching the skies and saying a prayer for the lost children, the veterans of our wars, and for a hope that the future will be bright.

This is a city with its share of strange people. We get them all from time to time. Larry Wheatlander and Milt Weedy are two people for the books. They own the Stagecoach Hotel and dinner. Their family owns the Sagebrush Ranch about twenty miles north of here. I tell you more about those guys later. Moose Sackenhat is the guy that runs the tourist museum and information center with his wife Molly. I went to high school with most of the people in this town, so as you might imagine I know them all.

Molly is a rock hound. She belongs to the group in town that takes hikes in the mountains looking for rocks. She polishes and sells them. Someday that too may be against the law, but right now its not, so that’s what she does. When she’s not collecting them she’s painting pictures of them, and of course the pipe organ cactus in the area. We have some here, but there’s a lot more south of the valley.