Subhead
“Epilogue”
BY STEVEN RAY BOWEN
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After almost three years, we’ve come to the final segment of our story. It truly is a story of a lifetime and will live on for a long, long, time, I suppose forever. Thanks for coming along on the journey.
– Coach
“Whatever happened to that half dollar, Popman?” Cheyenne asked.
I stared down at the tombstone, planted in red clay, shielded by a thousand tall pines.
“I gave it to Corrina that day,” I said, “I wanted her to have it.”
Cheyenne thought on it for a moment. I could tell his words were coming hard.
“You didn’t want her ever to be broke, did you, Popman?”
I watched another redbird fly from limb to limb, and smiled.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, “and she never has been.”
I gathered myself once more. “And I hope my other friend never was broke, either. He helped make me what I am.”
We had traveled many miles, crossed many rivers, to come to this place that set a few hundred feet from the swift current of Mud Creek.
I kneeled down on one knee at the footstone and rubbed my hand over the elegant letters etched in black:
Charles Roger Roland III
“Doocy”
Apr. 5, 1948 – Jan.9, 2025
A short distance away, beside a lilac bush, were two other tombstones.
We walked slowly over to them after a while, and we knelt a long time beside them as they rested beneath that red clay. Even without a word, we knew: They – like the young Pups, and a dark-haired miracle of ’73 – had forever kept their long-ago promise.
They had made good for one another.
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.
