Stone Warriors: Awakening a New World by W. R. Flynn

Author:W. R. Flynn [Flynn, W. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781490928395
Amazon: 1490928391
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2013-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Rueben’s place was on the north side of the east end of the highway, just across from the fire station. The brick fire station no longer served as a base for firefighters, but instead now secured the town armory. It was about a two mile walk west from Rueben’s to get to the church, but to Joe it seemed like ten. Later on, to get home, he still had another hard mile to go. It was already hot, well over ninety. But later, when he started to walk home, it would be like walking across Death Valley.

Lately, each step for Joe had to be more carefully measured and executed as his mysterious nervous condition worsened. It was annoying to Joe that his legs refused to move exactly where his brain ordered. This resulted in a wobbly, uneven gait, not quite as crooked as that of a drunk stumbling out of a bar at two in the morning and heading for his car, as they sometimes did during the old times, but close. Denise and Kelly believed it was caused by exposure to some horrible chemical during one of his military tours overseas, but what it precisely was would remain unknown.

He passed the clinic and kept hobbling along, pausing often to snack on dandelion leaves which appeared everywhere. His late mother occasionally reminded him that they contained seven times the phytonutrients of spinach and whenever he ate them he thought of her. He also helped himself to handfuls of the blackberries aggressively reaching out of the ditches on each side of the road.

Joe meandered between the short trees, tall shrubs and endless weeds growing wildly through cracks in what remained of the strip of asphalt maps once identified as the Historic Columbia River Highway. Everyone now simply called it the highway, a beautiful, scenic, tree-lined road, which for those biking or walking east offered a spectacular view of snow-capped Mount Hood.

After crossing town the shaded sanctuary of the Mount Hood Christian Church appeared on his right. It was across the highway from the vast acreage of the Corbett school. Few of its aging kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade classrooms were still used for learning. Some of the rooms were used for seed and winter food storage. Most of them, however, served as the home for an assortment of community needs such as the bustling Tuesday and Saturday morning trades and farmers market and the always-popular communal clothing exchange.

One was used as a karate dojo where Kelly, Alison, Dan and Kevin practiced and trained in this ancient Asian martial art, which they all pledged to keep alive for future generations. The popular Sunday afternoon open classes attracted dozens of people.

Ng Ling Cheow, with the help of Scott and Mary Lou, among many others, had converted another classroom into a small Buddhist temple. It was where the two dozen, or so, Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists in Corbett could quietly chant, study and meditate, but more importantly, store dharma texts and keep their philosophy and faith alive.

Ng Ling Cheow and his wife were recent immigrants to the United States.

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