THE OLD HOBO AND OTHER SHORT STORIES BY JOHN EDWIN PARKES

The Old Hobo and Other Short StoriesTHE OLD HOBO: It is mid-1900 when a battered old hobo trudges up along a California Highway and stops to rest at a roadside rest stop. He sees, liking to himself, a weathered old oak tree barely surviving within the rocks on the mountainside opposite the roadside rest stop. He is taken back when a young boy at the roadside rest wants to carve his initials in the tree with his pocketknife. It is stopped when his parents intercede. The old hobo bids a farewell to the tree and trudges on. THE SUN WILL SHINE: In the mid-1900s in a state mental hospital, a patient looks to a liking to himself by playing a solitaire marble game. THE GOLD MINE: A city slicker stops in for a beer in the bar of a derelict old gold mining town. While there, he encounters an old- timer viewing his gold samples and his dreams of developing a lost, secret gold mine. The city slicker facetiously plays the old timer along. So, is the gold mine real or in the old-timer's imagination? THE TENEMENT FLAT: In the mid-1900s a factory worker at the end of his workday comes home to his tenement flat only to meet and confront his wife over the fact that the last of their eight children, a daughter, has ran away with a sailor. An intense argument arises, family dynamics are unleased, the raising of their children, she being a boring, cold wife, his infidelity and his no-nothing job. With his pistol that she has taken, she confronts him, to finish him, to end it all. However, so, the tables are turned when, she being distracted, he gets the pistol, shoots her, and walks out. HE WAS NOT ONE OF US: The flimsy shack with its earthed floor shakes and sways incessantly from the raging, howling snowstorm outside, as the men, but for one, huddle around a heated potbellied stove under a swaying lantern telling their tales and yarns. They laugh, they joke, and they chuckle to keep their minds off the freezing cold. The one lies on the floor, his back against the wall, wrapped in a sleeping bag reading a book, when a blast of snow and cold air blows in, as the door opens, and a young stranger enters, shaking from the cold. Quietly he steps in, seats himself on the floor, and removes his frozen boots. He warms himself, then joins the group at the stove, joining on the laughter - but so, 'you're not one of us,' says one, 'you've got to leave,' says another. He puts on his boots. The cold air and snow blows in as he leaves. COUNTER ENCOUNTER AT THE MEAT COUNTER: The youngster steals watermelons from the man's watermelon patch and the youngster is confronted the next day at the meat counter by the man with the accusation the he, the youngster is a hoodlum, a ne'er-do-well, and future criminal to their community. So stated, but in time the youngster has to go to war, to be engaged in fierce heated military operations in South Korea. In it all, the youngster, survives, and in years returns home, marries the fairest of the young ladies in the community and moves into the house next to the man's. Another encounter at the meat counter, the aging man now is thoughtful, with reconciliation, resulting in an invitation, the wives to make fudge, and yes from the watermelon patch to have a watermelon. THE WEEKEND GUEST: the boy soldier knocks on the door and is warmly welcomed in by the man of the house for he has been invited in for the weekend by the late teenage young lady of the house. She is not the daughter of the family but the daughter to the sister of the man's wife who because of drugs has given her over to the family to be cared for. However, she is flirtatious to all of the boys in the area and the man is afraid she will become pregnant and bring shame on the family. So, marriage to the boy soldier is the ideal. The weekend visit is extremely pleasant. The young lady invites the boy soldier to bed with her. Out the door he goes. A DRIVER'S SECURITY: In the mid-1900s in a cold, dark night, t