The boys on the west end of my native island homeland were really close. I was especially close to the Paylor brothers -- Craig, who was one year older than me and Jeffrey, who was one year younger.
About mid-November the Christmas mail-order catalogues from Sears and Montgomery Ward would wondrously appear in our mail boxes -- Wish Books. Oh my, the toys on those pages were captivating to my boyhood brain.
I remember one year I asked old Saint Nick for an electric automobile race track. I suppose that's the year my love for NASCAR kicked into high-gear.
I was up that Christmas morning before sunrise. With the rest of my family still snuggled in their beds, I wondered how I would ever assemble the race track all alone. It was then that I heard a gentle tapping sound on the living room picture window. I looked up from the floor and there were the two faces of my dear friends pushed against the glass -- yes, the Paylor brothers, Craig and Jeffrey. Help had arrived! Who put that racetrack together? Well, here's a hint. Craig grew up to be an engineer.
Anyway, the three of us spent most of that special Christmas morning taking turns racing two colorful muscle cars around the black oval electric track. Sometimes the tires spun so fast that the cars would go airborne. Wow! What fun!
More than missing my childhood racetrack, I often miss the Paylor brothers. I especially miss Jeffrey. Craig and Jeff were in a car wreck in the early 1980s. They were both riding in the backseat of a speeding car that went airborne around a curve in our community and landed upside down in a roadside canal. At age nineteen, my dear friend, Craig's little brother, Jeffrey "Kent" Paylor was... gone.
How much did I love Jeffrey "Kent" Paylor? Well, in 1987, our firstborn, a son, arrived. We named him Grayson "Kent" Willis. That's how much I loved him! Jeffrey once told me that he loved his middle name, the same middle name that Superman had -- "Kent". I never forgot it.
A few weeks ago I was visiting on my island home. I stopped by The Virgie Mae Cemetery. Jeffrey "Kent" Paylor is buried right next to my beloved Granny and Grandaddy. Boy, do miss them and him.
I still collect Hot Wheel cars occasionally. I guess the little automobiles remind me of "Christmases Past" and especially my dear friends, the Paylor brothers. To this very day, I still like to collect the all-chrome Mustangs. They remind me of the special edition Hot Wheels that the boys in our neighborhood used to mail-order for one American dollar, as long as we enclosed two Kellogg's Cereal box tops, of course.
As much as I miss my friends from "Christmases Past", I am so humbled and grateful that The Lord has allowed me to stay around to keep our boyhood memories alive for "Christmases Present" and for future generations of Christmas lovers.
Grateful
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