AFTER RUNNING ERRANDS LATE THIS AFTERNOON,
I returned to The River for an hour this evening. The contrast between stores and roads with all the hubbub, and
the QUIET of The River was sweet ...
.
When I was growing up, the world was THAT QUIET when I was home ... and summer was filled with a LOT of various kinds of flowers, and birds, and nifty bugs, like grasshoppers, and ladybugs, and fireflies, and bluebottle flies. And there was the stream and animals that came to drink from it... the deer, and raccoons and groundhogs, and wild turkeys and eagles. But on the weekends, and many hot nights, I'd sit by the river with my family and feel the cool night breezes come in a gentle rush of air as the sun set. It was always quiet there, except when a train rumbled past ...
Dad would tell us about the old days when he was growing up here, and sometimes Granny would come along and tell us about HER olden days of growing up here, and Mom would point to the sunset or tell us not to go too near the edge, and she'd just enjoy the peace and quiet, while we were all watching the fish leap for gnats in the evening light, and other wonders of the natural world, before going home to sleep to the sounds of bullfrogs and cheepers, in bedding that smelled like fresh air and sunshine
On a hot night like tonight, Dad would take us all for a cool ride, and stop for ice cream from the Tastee Freeze, or DQ, in town, depending on whether we got plain ice cream, or the twist of the two flavors, and a LOT of it, or a specialty like a sundae or banana split with whipped cream and a cherry, and not so much ice cream ... and watch the trains and the river roll by...
... and sometimes we'd go to the park with a picnic ... THIS SAME PARK ... which hasn't changed much at all, since I was 10 years old and they put the "new" entrance road in
HOME SWEET HOME AWAY FROM HOME
