CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

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ARE YOU FISHING FOR A DREAM?

Are You fishing for dreams? Then bait your hook

With a bit of reality,

Then swing out wide and cast your line

Far out into Life's sea.

Let every dream have a fighting chance,

Give it plenty of slack,

But settle for only the biggest and best....

Throw the little ones back.

Are you fishing for dreams? Then I wish you luck,

It's a good dream-fishing day.

May you catch a beauty--but oh, take care,

Lest the big one get away.

Helen Lourie Marshall

I grew up in the bootheel of Missouri in what was at that time a small little town called Cape Girardeau, Missouri. My neighborhood was Rodney Vista and time in my neighborhood never paid the least bit of attention to the outside world. Most of the dads worked and the mom's were housekeepers that on off days from school and summers, had their hands full keeping track of the kids on a couple square blocks. My grandmother was a very heavy set woman who believed in the power of the willow stick to discourage thoughts of mischief from her grand kids and surrounding neighborhood kids. It always amazed me how very fast she could loose her patience and head for that willow tree in search for the perfect limb with just the right length(to reach the back of the legs) and light enough to just put the fear in us but do no harm. We wee interdenominational brats. When summer started so did vacation bible schools for ever faith and this was Granny's chance for quiet. For two weeks we might be Catholic and then become Pentecost for two weeks. We stuck cereal on paper and attached cotton balls and ate snacks with the best of them. I can remember standing on the corner with my cousins, trying not to get in trouble until some unknown person came and took us to be saved. We were actually Methodist through and through and my Gram pa Mac instilled our faith in us from birth on.

This morning I received a email from someone who grew up next door to me and we grew up side by side until college. He was tall and handsome, and his dad had a very neat basement.....I spent many hours at Russell's house.....It had all the necessary things for a tomboy to be entertained....a creek, a huge tulip tree, a dad that always had something going on in his basement because he was a wood worker and just generally a neat guy. Russ and my dad were true buddies. They fished all the time....our neighborhood was always together doing something. That was the grand 50's and their will never be anything like them again. Russ's letter made my day this morning and will be something I shall always cherish...love Charlene

THAT WORN PATH

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I have two dogs who co-hab a small farm with me in the country. There use to be three and I lost Sammy three years ago which left Henry, my chocolate lab to be alpha dog. Never a step is taken by Henry unless Shiloh is there to be his normal, grouchy, beagle self. I had never noticed until first snow fell the other night how set in their ways they were. They leave by one path in the morning. A path formed by them never veering two paw prints away from the same steps every day. They return two hours later by another path up the drive way and across the yard to the back. They have done this so long the ground is actually dented. As I stood at the windows Tuesday with my morning cup of coffee I prayed I would never again be this way in life. After watching the Inauguration My payer is that the many new paths will be formed and people will unite together regardless of differences and cure the ills of this world and do it in God's name. I have never been so proud to be an American and a citizen of the United States. What a truly wonderful place to live.....When I went to town Wednesday, I could plainly see the United States had changed for the better, overnight. Hope and happiness was everywhere even though The Great Depression was not giving up it's hold on our economy. I heard people talking about how big a garden they were putting in this summer and after the garden spot had laid quiet for several years and the feed lot was once again going to house feeder calves. Just as the South Rose Again, the small Midwest farm will show the county how to get by on less until the crisis is over. The nicest part of the whole thing is God is everywhere and people are not afraid to acknowledge him. He must be smiling for the guard has changed and a new day is dawning, and love is in the air.

"Tomorrow does not spring full-built

With some new dawn's bright rays---

Tomorrow is a slow built thing

Made up of yesterdays."

Thank you Lord for once again bringing a new experience to my life. This time in history is well worth living for and passing on to the grand kids....love pokie