David Zimmerman was a well mannered boy, that was for sure. But he was a boy of three parents, his mother at the core, the crackling broadcasts of The Shadow playing a supporting role, and the rolling wooded expanse outside of Greensburg as the background character. He liked adventure and he liked being alone, and these attributes surely didn’t fit well with those who came from the city proper.

Unbeknownst to him, he mortified his mother on more than one occasion. When he was 8, his mother had over a number of who’s who of the community for the Wives of Service Men club. As snacks were being served, David ran into the house covered head to toe in a thick mud paste from the nearby creek.

“Mom, I got one, I really did this time!” he said as his face, surrounded with the glow of success, melted into a bashful horror. Thinking not of his grimy appearance, for David was a boy of order, he was more ashamed of being so rude in front of a group of women whom he had never introduced himself to. Forcing his feet to move against the shame, David walked towards the group of women, most bewildered at this creek-child, and extended a hand still slick and slimy with mud.

“Hello mam, my name is David Zimmerman,” he said in a tone of respect and honor.

There was a brief cessation of time in the room. David’s mother, jaw gaping open, desperately hoping for something to save the situation from her assuredly quick social death. That boy is doing more damage than he realizes she thought, feeling a love yet frustration that only a parent endures.

“Charmed,” said the first woman, feigning towards a handshake much like a man would feed a hungry tiger.

Later that year, David’s mom changed. David didn’t understand it completely, but he knew that the joy in her had left. It seemed like every day she would age a year. Each night before bed she would tell him to pray for his father.

“Hold on. You and I must hold on,” she would tell David in sporadic and shattered syllables. “They’re looking for him,” she said as tears slid down her cheeks, “you and I. We must hold on to hope that they will find him David, we must pray.”