“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”
Spring will drop by this week. The next few days will be in the 60’s, and we could hit 70° on Friday. Now, where did I put that sunscreen?
Today my dance card is filled. I have lists of errands and chores to do to get ready for my friends’ arrival tomorrow. My shopping list is long.
Yesterday I was watching YouTube, and there were pigs. Nala noticed them and watched until the pigs were gone. I think it was the first time she ever watched TV.
When I was a kid, I lived in a wonderful town, a town filled with amazing places. It had a dairy and cows. I used to bike there to watch the cows in the field. I remember the route from the barn to the field was often muddy and filled with cow prints. The cows were black and white and later I learned they were Holsteins. We had a zoo. It wasn’t very big, but it had an elephant, a young elephant. On one side of the zoo were the small cages where animals like raccoons lived. I remember the cages were wooden and painted green. It had a petting zoo. Nursery rhymes were the motif. I remember the clock, the Hickory Dickory clock. Picnic tables were under trees at one end of the zoo. I used to bring my lunch and sit at one of the tables.
We had a girl scout camp in the woods across from the zoo, Camp Aleaska. It had a huge room with a huge fireplace. Along the walls were storage areas which we could sit. They were where the cots were stored. The cots were the sort with canvas in the middle and wood pieces at each end to keep the cots upright. It had a kitchen and a bathroom. One room was off the big room. That’s where the counselors slept when we had overnights. The trees around the camp were tall pines. All the paths were covered in brown pine needles.
I walked the railroad tracks. Trains still ran back then. I’d put a penny on the tracks so the train could run over them and fatten them. The train station was brick. It was across from the box factory.
The world of my childhood has disappeared. The rail road tracks are gone. The station is still there and has been many things including an insurance office and a store with trinkets. The zoo is still there, far better than my old zoo, but there isn’t an elephant. The farm has no cows. It sells stuff like mulch. I don’t know about the Girl Scout camp, but I didn’t see the dirt road leading to the camp the last time I drove by it.
I never expected my town to stay amazing. It got bigger, way bigger, the way many places do over time. My sister still lives there around the corner from where my parents lived. I seldom visit.
Explore posts in the same categories: Musings
April 10, 2023 at 7:51 pm
Kids walking on or near rail tracks, the nightmare of rail traffic for drivers and travelers, fear and transport chaos.
We celebrated Easter today with eggs, spinach and strawberries with cream, just the chocolate bunnies are still alive. I think we now have Pentecost bunnies 🙂
Have a great time with your friends! (…and please don’t feel obliged to spend your precious time with posting here, we will wait patiently and won’t run away.)
April 10, 2023 at 8:49 pm
Birgit,
My town only had a single track so the train got to its destination then had to turn around. It crossed mostly smaller roads until it passed through Main Street. We always heard the train coming or going.
My dinner yesterday was delicious. The au gratin potatoes were out of this world. The pork was thick and tasty. I was happy I had ordered it.
Today I bought a chocolate rabbit half price. I had gone shopping to fill the larder for my friends’ visit.
I think I have time to post tomorrow but won’t on Thursday when they are still here. Thanks for the reassurance.
April 11, 2023 at 8:38 pm
Hi Kat,
The only time I lived in a small town was in 1980. I moved to Big Spring Texas to fly for an oil company. They were planning to hire me when they moved their flight department to Dallas. Unfortunately, the director of operations had a heart attack and I moved temporarily to the wilds of west Texas.
Big Spring is located in the oil patch of the Permian basin. It’s the county seat and is a one cigarette town. You can drive through town while smoking one cigarette. Many of the residents wore dusty cowboy boots, ten gallon hats, and drove pick’em up trucks. Many of them were very wealthy because their grandparent’s dirt farms, outside of town, have been producing 75 or more barrels of west Texas Intermediate crude weekly since the 1920s. The municipal airport was a former Air Force base which closed a couple of years earlier. The newly constructed BOQ, (Batchelor Officer Quarters), was converted into a minimum security federal penitentiary. The prisoners worked as fireman and other jobs at the airport. After nine at night the entire town shutdown tighter than a drum.
I only stayed about six months and I couldn’t wait to get back to the civilization of the Dallas, Ft. Worth, Metroplex.
🙂 I’m a city guy at heart.
April 11, 2023 at 9:51 pm
Hi Bob,
I doubt I would have enjoyed such a small town. it sounded perfectly small and miserable. They didn’t seem to be doing much with their money. Nothing worse than a town where rolled up the sidewalks early.
My hometown had a square with stores and access to buses which went to the subway station so we were connected to the bigger world. It was middle class, maybe lower middle back then.
I’m surprised you lasted six months!
April 11, 2023 at 10:36 pm
So was I. 🙂 I tell people that if the world needed an enema, Big Spring would be where God would start. 🙂 There were no redeeming virtues in Big Spring other than boredom.
April 11, 2023 at 10:55 pm
I doubt boredom would ever be a redeeming factor!