Across the Night Mile

my word journey…

When I was a kid…
in school…
I so enjoyed reading… and literature…
it felt like doorways…

I loved to write stuff back then…
my teachers would encourage me…
give me a little praise here and there…

I always felt a strange connection to writing—
it tugged at me throughout my early years…

But after high school…
I mostly abandoned it…
I just folded it up neatly…
put it away…

Except for trying to write a few songs once in awhile…
but it was like I had the worst word block…
for most of my life…

I could feel the words…
I just couldn’t effin find them…

I guess it wasn’t time yet…
I was still living it all…

So I laid my pen down…
grabbed a pick…
grabbed my guitar…

I let it fly…

I stopped trying to write my own songs so much—
focused on learning all the songs on the radio…

I bought album after album…
I learned them…

Music became me…

Great lyrics from the heart and soul of others…
helped me see in the night…

The words that were in me—
that I couldn’t find—
I found elsewhere…
and put them in me…

An endless amount…
filling all the holes…
inside… 😎

With my pen in my pocket…
a guitar in my hand…
I stood tall…

Step after step…
strum after strum…

I walked it out…
through the fire…
through the rain…
through the pain…

I walked it out…
across the night mile…

Alone…
but never alone…

I walked it out…

Now…
I just look back…
and give it all—
the final finger… 😁

I think the pen is about ready for action…
again…

A few months ago…
I had a dream…

Words were on their way to me—
riding the night…

I dreamt of a poem…

I was so moved when I woke…
I just laid in bed thinking…

Then—for about twenty minutes—
I wrote…
bringing to life the dream…

For a week after that…
the words kept up…

Coming from somewhere inside…
pouring out…
filling pages…
Feeling right…

like I found a buried key…
to a blue treasure room…

This happened all of a sudden…
in one night…

And it hasn’t stopped since…

I’m just trying to keep up…

I don’t know why it came when it did—
but I’m thankful it did…

The great dam…
has finally broke…

I started feeling something inside…
a hummingbird…

Telling me I should start a blog…
so I did…

So here I am…

So what do I do now?
haha…

I think I’ll just be me…

I started feeling I should write about my life—
so I did…
so I have…
so I probably will more…

I never dreamed how much it would help me…
by telling my story…

Like draining a fevered swamp…

So when I write now…
I pray some…

I pick out my music…
usually a full album…

I get in the zone…
it’s game time baby…

Then I remember…
then I go back…
to how it was…
to how it felt…
to the emotions of it all…

Then I embrace that intensity…

I let my words rise from inside…
like heat from the asphalt…

Then I let go of it…

I give it all away—

for good… 😎 `’.,°~

She once believed… in every story he had to tell…

Once divided… nothing left to subtract… some words when spoken… can’t be taken back…

And He who forgets… will be destined to remember…

© 2026 Bryan H. All Rights Reserved.

Little Grown-Ups…

my life as a Gen X kid…

This song has the “F” word in it… only once… in one line… so you may not want to listen… if it may offend you… 👇

I was born in September of  73`… a Gen X kid…
when I look back now… I realize things…


Yeah maybe I was doing stuff early on that probably could have waited until I was an adult…


but life was different back then…


the world was wider… lighter… rawer… simpler… all at once…


And us kids…


we were all little grown-ups…

From the time I was about eight until I was fourteen…


life couldn’t have been much better…


I grew up in a fairly large community of side by side houses… side by side families…
where everybody knew everybody…
neighbors didn’t just nod — they shared life…
they borrowed sugar…
they brought each other meals…
they sat in yards and talked about real things…
hearts… stories… struggles… faith… loss… laughter…


It wasn’t perfect —
but man… it was real…

My great-grandfather lived with us in those days…


he was one of a kind…


old as dirt… tougher than leather… stubborn as wet cement…


he had lived much…
And he never ran out of stories…


He’d sit outside every day… in this beat up old folding chair…


And half the time.. I’d pull another chair beside him… and just listen…


He was a war veteran — A Purple Heart… other medals he earned through blood and grit…


Infantry…
France…
WW2…


he’d tell me stories of laughing under fire… marching… waiting… freezing… fighting… barely surviving…


And I’d pepper him with a thousand questions… because I couldn’t get enough…

Later.. I found out from my grandmother…
that he had taken many lives in battle…
those stories… he never told…
those belonged to him… and God alone…


What I did see…
was a man who had walked through hell…


And somehow came back kinder…
tougher…


And still able to laugh a little…
And love a lot…


And without making speeches…
without preaching a word…


he was shaping the boy sitting beside him…

In those days…
my parents worked…


so most times I had to fend for myself…


I had a house key… freedom… responsibility…


but there were rules…


Do the right thing when nobody is watching…


Be  about character…
Be about integrity…

Be about it…

Be a decent human being…


And oh yeah…
be home by dark…

On the edge of our community…
the world exploded into a massive forest
deep woods stretching for miles…
thousands of acres…
trees… creeks… hidden lakes… trails… wildlife…


a giant playground for kids who hadn’t yet learned to be afraid of living…


I spent countless days exploring those woods…


fishing…
riding dirt bikes…
shooting guns…


no supervision… no phones… just trust…


Sometimes on Saturdays I’d wake up before the sun…
pack myself a sack lunch and some drinks…
grab my fishing poles and tackle box…
strap it all to the back of my dirt bike…
And disappear into the woods…

All… day… long…


Sometimes friends came along…
sometimes it was just me and the world —
And honestly… those were some of the best days…


Many mornings my great-grandfather would stop me before I left…
hand me his old .22 pistol in a worn leather holster…
And tell me to take it “for protection”…
because us kids needed guns back then haha…
we learned early… how to treat and respect a firearm…
it was a great privilege… responsibility… And it was ours…

I’d strap it to my waist like a cowboy…
fire up that dirt bike…
And ride off into the blue…


Freedom…
Adventure…
Responsibility…
Trust…

A childhood that felt like life training…


And I am grateful… deeply grateful…


Those years shaped me…
they toughened me…
they softened me…
they taught me courage… solitude… resourcefulness… respect… curiosity… wonder… independence…

I didn’t know it then…


but those were Holy days…


And I am thankful I grew up when I did…


in a world… full… of little grown-ups…

`’x.~¡-^;‐

© Bryan H. 2025 — All Rights Reserved

Also… my great-grandfather’s middle name and mine… are the same… Loia… pronounced Loy like Joy…

I forgot to mention my dog… Buck… he was there too… he didn’t live inside a fence… he never knew a leash… he was free to roam… just like me… he followed me everywhere… he loved to swim… while I fished…

I’m the blood on your guitar… I’m that wave You caught back in 1975…