SOMETIMES IT'S GOOD TO GO HOME

Thomas Wolfe wrote that you cannot go home again. We know that he was talking about emotionally, not physically. I went home a couple of weeks ago, almost.  I attended a Fall Festival and book signing in Pulaski, Virginia, the county seat of my home county.  If I had gone home it would have been about ten miles away in the little mountain village of Belspring. I would have been limited to looking at the small white Cape Cod with the red tin roof from afar.  My father retired in 1975 and he and my mother moved back to their "home" in Bedford County.  After a few years had passed, I asked her if she were sorry they left their home of over thirty years in Belpring.  She never gave me a direct answer but hinted that she only came because Dad wanted to build a retirement home on land he had "worked" as a young man. She knew you can't go home again.  My Dad seemed to be continually searching for the home he remembered through a boy's eyes.

If I had stood across the street and observed my childhood home, it would have looked different. The large Norway maple tree would be standing tall and majestic to the left of the front porch.  I would imagine bracing myself  in the yoke of the old tree.  I was hidden from the world and I could observe many goings on outside the near-by homes and the busy street that ran by my house and through the middle of the village. I has grown and had left home when my Dad knew the beautiful old tree had to go because of decay and disease in its trunk.  I felt as if an old friend had passed away. In its place now is a huge evergreen tree, taller than the house. It is not a "climbing tree." Such a pity if there are children in that home.  I have a feeling climbing trees is a lost art today in our world where there are so many rules to protect us from ourselves.

I take another look at the house and I notice the hedge in front has been replaced with a chain link fence.  Such a fence,  has no eye appeal, but is good to keep in small children and dogs.  It keeps out dogs and other children, as well. I'm certain that when my Dad was trimming the hedge on a hot summer day he longed for a fence.  But he never put one up.  Hedges seem more neighborly and the road trash is not as obvious. 

Other than the tree and the fence the house looks pretty much the same as it did when I left on the day of my marriage, December 8, 1957. The red tin roof and the painted columns.  I remembered my Dad taking a small brush and painting the mortar white.  My Mother said that he painted things that didn't need paint.  How many women would be glad to say that?

I wonder how the inside has changed over the years.   I 'm sure that it has in many ways. That is not important to me.  I know my parents are no longer there. The aromas from Mom's Southern cooking have long disappeared.  Just a hint of the scent of Dad's pipe tobacco would bring a flood of memories but it's not there.

So Thomas, you were right, "you cannot go home again." But the memories will never be erased.

Your comments are welcomed.