By the grace of God Almighty through the years I have seen a lot of this world; some good, some bad.
I remember the first time I run away from home; not as a rebellious child but overcome by the urge to go. I was thirteen years old and I’d been working odd jobs around the train yards after school in Cincinnati, Ohio. One evening as a westbound train pulled out I hopped in a box car; the train stopped in Chicago. I roamed the streets a couple days then hitched a ride back home . . . two weeks
later I was back in Cincinnati; needless to say I didn’t sit down for a while after that, but the restlessness was still there and I had to go. The next few years my adventures didn’t keep me away from home as long, a day or two here and there.
At sixteen I met a tugboat Captain and talked him into giving me a job; the first couple weeks was ok, work all day home at night . . . the third week he hooked to a couple coal barges and we headed south, I didn’t tell my dear mother I was going . . . in Shreveport Louisiana the Captain ‘whom I will leave nameless’ and myself was arrested for public intoxication; the Shreveport police was nice enough to give me a place to sleep it off, then take
some of my money and buy me a bus ticket back to Cincinnati. The Cincinnati police was nice enough to greet me at the bus station and drive me home. My dear mother was very understanding, but I didn’t think she was very nice at the time.
The next couple years I worked a few different local jobs, but still those urges to roam took control; I had my driver licenses and my own car and when the urge hit me I took off . . . sometimes I told my dear mother I was going, sometimes
telling her didn’t even cross my mind. At age eighteen I enlisted in the army and for the next thirteen years I got to see a lot the world, some of it was not real good or fun.
I have always had a passion for poetry and a talent for writing; I love telling stories and a lot of my writings are based on my adventures, things I’ve done, things I’ve seen and people I have met,worked and talked with over the years.
My writings tell my story and their story . . . some fact, some fiction . . .
From my youth I have had a strong belief and faith in God Almighty and Jesus Christ; though I have broken many of His commandments, He has always watched over me and He has forgiven me. Gods love and grace is also told in my stories.
I’ve learn to suppress the urge to go, but it’s still
there. There is still to much I haven’t seen.
John Colyer
God Bless.