Oh yeah, much has changed

The last couple of days I have tried to stomp around in the area where my father grew up. Yes, the land has changed somewhat. Roads exist now where none had existed before or where only rutted wagon wheels had passed. There's a lake through the land now where only a river had snaked its path before. The hills are still wooded, but a great number of houses have carved out their niches among the cedars that weren't around many years ago. Of course, all the modern conveniences of cell towers and electric poles now dot the countryside where none had been present when dad grew up.



Dad used to talk a little about taking two-day hikes and spending the night on the tops of hillsides. He spoke of tending a mule that walked around a pole to crush sorghum so that he could stoke a hot fire to make black strap molasses in the heat of midsummer days. He told of killing squirrels with slingshots and cooking them for meat. He mentioned the two-day trips taken in a covered wagon to the closest town with a store so they could buy clothes, shoes, or feed. They would camp out overnight and eat, play, and sing around the campfire before going into town the next morning.



Oh yeah, much has changed. But, when I walk the grassy lake shore next to what used to be the river, I can imagine the other era. I can still see what it was like because some of the ancient landmarks have not completely vanished, and I can feel the older spirit around the wooded hillsides that still exist today for not every hilltop has a new house on it nor every road an asphalt top.

And I talk to my dad's hillsides and lakes and grassy meadows full of haze and sunlight and the occasional rain storm. I start by posing some circumstance in my life and answering, "I don't know." Then I listen for the advice that I always get. Dad was always right when he offered wise words before he left this world. So, I listen to him now in his place. It always modifies my thinking or spurs me to needed action.

So, I'll quote my dad as I leave. Although he would always say this about going to church, I'll apply it to coming to his place. "It was good to have been here." I am leaving Dad's place this time with a very clear vision of my path ahead.