Home

    I just flew into Chicago.  I had a window seat, and as I am want to do I studied the country side as we progressed north from Memphis.  After years of doing this, I can pretty much find enough land marks to identify where we are.  So it was not at all difficult to identify the Kankakee river as we flew  in our manuevering for approach into Chicago.  So?  What is special about that area?  Well............., nothing.................., and everything.  It is where I spent most of my youth, and it is where some family  resides today. 

    Watching the farm country roll by, I was a little surprised at the pull on my heart.  Why?  What about Kankakee, Bradley, and Bourbonnais would call to me after 3 decades away?  What is it about a place that makes it home?  Like I said, 3 decades.  Yet the pull was absolute.

   It is not just Illinois.  Eddyville Kentucky calls to my soul.  So does Brownsville, Tennessee (and I have not been there but once or twice in the last 30 years).  I never fly into Honolulu that I do not look for the place we lived for three years.  There is a double lot in downtown Milton Florida that I still  drive by.  The old house is gone, but some of the plants we planted are still there.  What is it that draws me? 

     Memories........... it has to be memories.  I think we invest so much of ourselves in an area that we leave a little bit of ourselves there.  And maybe we need to touch that bit of ourselves occasionally.  As I sit here contemplating, the words to a song come to mind..... it was done by Wynona... it goes:


Old tin roof, leaves in the gutter
A hole in the screen door big as your fist, and flies on the butter
Mamaw baking sugar cookies, we were watching cartoons
Heard her holler from the kitchen which one of you youngin's wants to lick the spoon?
Yellow jackets on the watermelon, honeysuckle in the air
Daddy turning on the sprinkler, us kids running through it in our underwear
Old dog napping on the front porch, his ear just a-twitching
Fell asleep on Granddaddy's lap to the sound of his pocket watch ticking

Chorus
Oh, oh, oh - Oh, oh, oh
It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago
Oh, oh, oh - Oh, oh, oh
You can dream about it every now and then
But you can't go home again

Me and my best friend Jenny set up a back yard camp
Stole one of Mama's Mason jars, poked holes in the lid and made a fire fly lamp
Me and Billy Monroe sneaking down by the river
And I'm still haunted by the taste kiss I was too scared to give him

Repeat Chorus

There's a black-top road, a faded yellow centerline
It can take you back to the place, but it can't take you back in time



Dad always warned me about trying to live in the past.................. but it is so integral to where we are today.  Maybe just an occasional visit?