The Good Ole' Days

On my way to work this morning I heard the song, "Almost Home". I have always loved that song. For those of you who don't know it, it is about a man who came upon a homeless man sleeping in the snow. At first he thought he was dead, but as he went to shake him a little he awoke. The kind man was trying to talk the homeless man into letting him take him to a shelter, but the homeless man just replied, "I just climbed out of a cottonwood tree, I was running from some honey bees, drip drying in the summer breeze after jumping in to calico creek. I was walking down an old dirt road, past a field of hay that had just been mowed. Man, I wish you'd just left me alone, 'cause I was almost home...". Of course, the homeless man had been dreaming of home and the kind man woke him up and brought him back into reality. Like the homeless man, there have been many times that I have wished to go "back home". Don't get me wrong, I love my life. I have a good job, a nice home and a wonderful husband. But, wouldn't you, even for just one day, love to go back to the days when things were so innocent and the only worry you had was getting home in time for supper? I long for those times. I would love to have a day to go back in time. Perhaps around 1984...everyone I loved was still alive then and my mom & dad were still together. I would love to set at the dinner table with my mom and dad again as we ate and looked out at the back yard through our sliding glass patio doors, to have water fights and snowball fights with them again and take a trip to Rough River or the Smoky Mountains. I would love to watch my Saturday morning cartoons (back when cartoons were good) and play in the yard with my neighborhood friends. I would love to go shopping with my Granny for a day like we used to or just set on the porch swing and have one of our talks. I would love to go to the Sale Barn with my Papaw Torchy or let him take me on a tour of his garden that he was so proud of. I would love to go to Bingo with Mamaw Shirley or sit on the picnic table in her back yard and listen to her stories. I would love to spend some time with Papaw Bob and eat some of his famous meatloaf or spaghetti. I would love to play "Little House on the Prairie" with Shelly in Mamaw & Papaw's back yard or have a slumber party with all of my cousins and watch scary movies. All of these things are fond memories that I hold in my heart. They say that you can dream about it every now and then, but you can't go home again. Of course I could never physically go back there again, but in my heart and in my mind I can go "home" any time I want. I do dream occasionally of being home again and being with those who have passed awayagain , only to wake up to the realization it was just a dream. It is kind of disappointing at first until I wake up enough to realize that I am still very blessed. I still have my mother and my father. They aren't together anymore, but they are friends and are still a huge part of my life. I still have one grandparent left, my Mamaw Shirley. She isn't totally the same in her mind, but I know she is the same in her heart. I still have all of my cousins that I had slumber parties and watched scary movies with. In fact, we all live in the same town. We are the same too, we are just a little older. And last, but not least, I wake up in the arms of a man who loves me more than anything else in the world. You see, the times I live in today are just as good as those times, just in a different way.