*You Can Go Home Again!*

I have always heard that you can 'never go home again' relating to the fact that the past is not what you remembered. Well, I did go home again! My son Steve and I were recently traveling from Michigan back to Atlanta where he lives and decided to stop in the city of my birth, Troy, Ohio. What a surprise! The town square that I remembered as a little girl was exactly as I remembered it. Yes, the stores were different but the buildings were the original ones and the fountain was still there. I had not been here since 1967 when my Grandmother, Frances Minerva, passed away. I never thought it would be the same.........

It brought tears to my eyes remembering all the happy times and all of my relatives in this small town. We stopped in to eat at a small restaurant that had a sign saying EAT which made my son laugh. The 'youngest' waitress was 62 years old and she knew of all of my relatives. You placed your order for the best home-cooked food at the counter and your name was called when it was ready for pick up. The food was excellent and at a cost of $12 for both of us.

It was a step back in times long ago when my cousins and I used to go to the town square, go to the one movie theatre and have fun watching movies for .25 cents. It was the location of the Bar owned by my Uncle Andy, who has since passed. It had also contained the dry goods store with the attic containing my beloved paper dolls that I used to purchase when my Grandma took me there. My Grandma also had an upper apartment in one of those old buildings when she could no longer maintain her boarding house.

Those memories surrounded me as we had lunch, looked around the town square and got on with our journey. I will be forever grateful to my son Steve for allowing me this wonderful chance to go home again.....

*THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE*

FIVE A.M. IN THE PINE WOODS

I’d seen their hoof prints in the deep needles

and knew they ended the long night
under the pines,

walking like two mute and beautiful women

toward the deeper woods,

so I got up in the dark and went there.

They came slowly down the hill

and looked at me sitting under the blue trees,

shyly they stepped closer and stared

from under their thick lashes and even
nibbled some damp tassels of weeds.

This is not a poem about a dream, though it could be.
This is a poem about the world that is ours, or could be.

Finally one of them— I swear it!—
would have come to my arms

But the other stamped sharp hoof in the pine needles

like the tap of sanity,and they went off together

through the trees.

When I woke I was alone,

I was thinking:

So this is how you swim inward,

So this is how you flow outward

So this is how you pray.

Mary Oliver, House of LightBeacon Press, Boston (1962)

*Today is International Peace Day declared so by the United Nations

If we could only achieve this and make it be.

*A MEMORIAL TO DREW LARIMER*

Dear sweet Drew! When I heard about your sudden passing, it broke my heart. So young with your whole life ahead of you......and what a wonderful life that would have been.

I remember the last time that I saw you...........I was getting my haircut by your Dad, Dale, at the home he shares with Richard. I remember my last visual memory of you, standing in the driveway smiling from ear to ear. I remember thinking how proud Dale and your mother must be of you. Your face glowed and your smile was so genuinely warm, I will never forget that. I am sorry that it was the last time I saw you and I will always treasure that memory.

I would also like to remember your life, Drew, as being one where you fought to be 'who you really were' and were so close to becoming the person you wanted to be.

In today's world of intolerance and ignorance, you fought the battle and YOU WON. It was truly a pleasure to have known you the short time that I did and I feel honored to have done so.

You will be missed Drew, the world is a better place because you were once a part of it..............