I. Someone from Somerset, or a group of them, beat him for embezzling their money. That’s what my older brother, Charley, told me. But Mother, back then, said he was robbed in an alley and came away with a broken arm… Read More ›
My Family Story
The Best Year Ever
It was the best year ever. This was before my colossal bet with my older brother Charley. Before everything started unraveling. Still, it wasn’t as if our bet had anything to do with what occurred subsequently. Rather, as a result… Read More ›
Tuna for Christmas
Suzie couldn’t believe all the plans we had in store for her. She cocked her ears back when we told her everything, but she didn’t move when we reached out to touch her, and she even let Jerry, Allison, and… Read More ›
Old Ironsides, A Poem of the Modern Family
Somehow I knew they were fighting over which one would hold sway – no, not Mother and Daddy, but rather, Mrs. Daniels or Mrs. Gosling, my two third grade teachers. They must have decided, perhaps unconsciously, that I was the… Read More ›
Goner
The small plane was above us, loud and sputtering. We kids, Holly, Charley, Allison and I, heard it immediately upon getting off the school bus. We raced across the highway and ran down our lane to the house. Something was… Read More ›
Holly’s Horse Ginger
The farmer backed the horse out of the trailer. I stood beside Mother and Allison as it loomed larger and larger before us, a big reddish-brown rump of a horse. I wondered what we were going to do with it…. Read More ›
Mean Old Willie
No, I wasn’t the bumbler in the family. Even though Mother said I was – I wasn’t. We all knew, actually, who was the bumbler in our family. On our farm, deep in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains, Daddy… Read More ›
The Box
It’s a rainy day and we are dressing and undressing Barbies in Allison’s room. I am seven or eight and am sitting at the foot of Allison’s bed. Allison is nine or ten and is happy I am with her…. Read More ›
Branded
My brother was mean. If I was willing to play baseball or football, Charley could be a wonderful older brother. The two of us would ride our bikes for miles to other farms in the area for pick-up games, and,… Read More ›
Lonely are the Brave
As a kid, I had a love-hate relationship with the Somerset movie theater: I loved the movies but hated the hoods hanging out there. The old movie theater was located on our side of Somerset and took only twenty minutes… Read More ›
The Road to Somerset
Being next to the youngest in my family was not always a good thing, especially during the seven-year period on the farm when I was between the ages of five and eleven. From my vantage point, then, with no information to… Read More ›
When Mother Slapped Allison
“She slapped me in front of Junior,” Allison said, when I brought up our hired hands on the farm. It was a blustery Saturday back in May, and I had driven the six hours to Gettysburg the day before. It was now… Read More ›
My Sister Allison and Younger Brother Jerry
For Allison and me, it was also a time of great mystery, and we knew that on the farm magical creatures lived amongst us. Allison, a year and a half older than me, was only six when we moved to the… Read More ›
Hired Hands and Mother
With my father commuting back and forth, it was clear by that first spring our parents needed a full-time hired hand to work the farm, keep a handle on what was happening in the barn, feed the livestock, and till… Read More ›
The School Bus; Mother and Me
I loved our farm deep in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think schools ever crossed my parents’ minds – not like how schools dominate real estate markets today and are often the decisive elements in where one… Read More ›
My Older Brother Charley
At the far end of the hall my brother, Charley, and I shared a bedroom, much to his dismay. It was clear to all of us, at this point in our lives, Charley did not like me, though I am not… Read More ›
The Farmhouse and Holly Too
Our house on the farm was a one-floor rancher in the shape of an “L”. At the lower end of the “L” was the living room and dining room overlooking our fields and the roof of the barn off to the… Read More ›
Winter on the Farm; at the Airport
It was in the fall of 1958 when we moved nine miles east of Somerset on Route 31, or the Somerset Pike as it was known, about a half-of-a-mile beyond the crossroads of Brotherton. At first, our parents loved their new… Read More ›
Where we Lived; Mother and Daddy
The house my mother found in Gettysburg was magical. It was everything I could have wanted as a teenager, and it didn’t take long before I realized it. My family lived in three different locations while I was growing up. The first was… Read More ›
Introduction and Rationale
This is a reflection on my mother’s life and a story of my family. I have wanted to write this history for some time, and, hopefully, now that I am doing it, I’ll get the facts right as we go along. Unfortunately,… Read More ›
jonathan giles 