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YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN
Home is where the youth dwell!
Once you leave, you can only return as a visitor. When you leave you take what you’ve learned and build another home for you and your children.
When attempting to define the word home, I have always thought of a large circle of sharing that grows more intense with each step one takes toward the center, culminating in the presence of and the relationships with, the ones you love.
The circle has no specific boundaries but I could always tell when I was there. A feeling of peace and joy seemed to prevail once you entered into the invisible limits. My home covered a large circle and included a lot of wonderful people!
The center of my home was my Mother and Father. Two wonderful people that, in the midst of poverty, somehow made us feel safe, secure and loved in the worst of times. Through sheer will and determination they somehow provided the material necessities for a good life in a very limited and perilous world.
I was schooled in the spirit and faith of my parents and was taught that my allegiance was to my God, my family, my community, my county, my state and my nation and in that order. I was further taught that if I should err I should be man enough to take my punishment without whining…………to repent and get on with my life.
I am just beginning to fully appreciate my heritage!
To home, to home, that special place
You can get there from here.
The times that were; a place that was
They still exist…….somewhere!
A haven for the weary,
A book of love and lore.
A welcome mat with footprints
And no lock on the door!
A place with special odors
At the burst of dawn each day.
Fat back, eggs and coffee
And gravy on the way
To cover that big biscuit
Placed there upon your plate.
"Hurry up and finish, son,
That old school bus won’t wait!"
A featherbed like fluffy clouds
As clean as any pin.
A goodnight kiss or a razor strap
It just depended on how you’d been.
We got a regular dose of each,
Dispensed with love and tears.
The kiss was understood at once,
But the strap took many years!
A place with country music
From Nashville, Tennessee.
We shared with all our neighbors,
The Grand Ole Operyee!
A special kind of radio
With batteries and wire
Hooked up in our living room
Beside a big old roaring fire!
A woodshed and a sagging barn
In constant need of care.
That called you to a private place
Somewhere you would never share.
A cave like hole in new mown hay
Where you could spy, by darn
On the things that other people did
When they came to the barn!
A spring house down below the hill
With crocks of milk and wine.
Salt cured hams just hanging there
Like grape pods on the vine.
Sheets of fat back on the shelf
And jars of pickled beans.
A crawdad searching for a mate
And a pile of old blue jeans!
But of all the places in the world
And the safest place to be
Was around that homemade table,
Perched up on Daddy’s knee!
A big brown buttered biscuit
And a jar of Dixie Dew
Was mixed up with a bunch of love
And then was fed to you!
On Saturdays, some time was spent
Behind that cook stove range.
In a tub filled up with water
That seemed to need a change.
Especially if you were the fourth
To wash the whole darned thing,
Then dry off on a soggy towel
That someone forgot to wring!
There was Mama’s magic oven
That she would use to bake
A thing we never figured out….
A checkerboard sheet cake!
Squares of brown and yellow,
It was her claim to fame.
If she had only baked some cupcakes
We could have played a game!
A bucket filled with apples
Was served when company came.
Rusty coats or winesaps
And a six handed setback game.
A platter full of creamy fudge
Was sometimes passed your way
Mixed up with love and walnuts,
On a very special day!
They say you can’t go home again.
But I say it isn’t true.
You can take the trip most any time,
It’s all left up to you.
It is all a part of who we are
And what we will always be,
Members of a special club
It’s called a family!
The next time we take this trip
Let’s really let them know
How much we truly loved them
And how we miss them so!
I guess they always really knew
When they crossed to that shore,
They simply built another home
With no locks on the door!
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