I think most people have a longing for the past.  This morning, I saw a post at Crisis related to our yearning for security.  The writer says we aren’t looking at a time we’re thinking of a place.  Two events this week have me longing for my hometown somewhere between 1966 and 1986.  I was born there 54 years ago, went to school there from kindergarten through high school graduation, and then spent two more years at home while attending community college.  I left to finish at a four year school and then came home briefly before moving away for good.

This morning, I was waiting for my coffee to brew and started looking at my Facebook page.  A childhood friend had posted his mother died last night.  He was in my brother’s class and they were two years behind me at school.  Mike’s older brother, Terry, is among the best of friends I’ve ever known and he was with me from kindergarten through 12th grade.  Their mother was a strict disciplinarian and a devout Baptist.  She was mostly a stay-at-home mom.  She was also very creative.  When the family beagle, Sparky, broke his chain and wanted to wander the neighborhood she kept him at home.  Mrs. V. put out a block of frozen hamburger.  Sparky devoured it within minutes, but it gave Mike and Terry valuable time to fix the chain.

I need to note the two boys grew up to become good citizens and successful in life.  It comes from the discipline at home, although.  I need to mention it wasn’t like the VanDerLinden boys were ever any serious trouble.  Like a lot of people surrounding me, when growing up in a small town you need to realize very few look to cause problems.  Mike and Terry were fixers.  They were handy with tools and could build go-carts and tree houses and occupied themselves in their spare time by being very good ballplayers.

Earlier this week, I saw pictures posted on Facebook from the Memorial Day parade.  Back home Memorial Day is always parade day.  With bands, fire engines, tanks and now Humvees instead of Jeeps.  As I recall from when I was a boy we would walk the few blocks to downtown and then wait for the event to get started.  Then, there would be silence and just the sound of a man calling out marching cadence and heels clicking on pavement.  When I was very young, the streets were red brick and the clicking was much more pronounced than after the asphalt replaced the bricks (snowplows and bricks aren’t friends).  The parade would snake through town and then to the cemetery and there would be stirring words about those who had given the last full measure of devotion.  The parade route appears to have changed and the terminus now looks to be a park where a wreath laying ceremony takes place at a monument.  The thing is, the streets have changed very little.  A few houses have new paint and it’s of a different color but when I saw the photographs I had a reaction I didn’t expect.  I could almost hear the clicking heels as if I was standing on Main Street and my mind allowed me to smell the aroma of home.  Places have unique odors.  In spring it was lilacs.  As summer approached it was a mix of flowers, nearby dairy farms and backyard barbecues.

Three generations gather at home in 1978. Uncle Walt (center) had already been gone since 1955 and rarely came home to visit.
Three generations gather at home in 1978. Uncle Walt (center) had already been gone since 1955 and rarely came home to visit.
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I guess you could say I don’t long for 1966 or 1971 or 1978 as much as I long for the sense of community.  When I was very young, there were three traffic lights in town but the one at West Main and Elm Streets always seemed to be on the fritz.  It was replaced by 4-way stop signs.  In winter we spent our days sledding at Willowbank Park and didn’t go home until our clothes were soaked and our skin was pink and tingled.  In summer, there was Cuba Lake.  The old Pavilion is long gone but as we grew older and expanded our horizons with bicycles we could pedal to the dam.  It’s where I saw brave kids run and leap and grab ropes dangling from trees.  The ropes would spin and if you let go at just the right time you would hit water instead of rocks.  As daring as we might be, we always went home where there was always dinner and always a warm bed.

This is life before the real living begins.  Work has taken most of us away and many of my old friends re-created slices of home wherever they landed.  It’s a bit more complicated for me.  My parents brought me home from the hospital in October of 1962 and we lived in the same house until summer of 1970.  I’ve not lived under one roof for a period longer than 5 years since then, and the work I do requires me to be ready to move on short notice.  I’ve called many places home and made some swell friends and currently have fine neighbors and, yet.

Nothing can ever quite compare to the life I knew when my universe was confined to a few small square miles in the northern reaches of the Allegheny Foothills.  It never leaves you.  Decades roar by and so many experiences still have the feel it was just yesterday.  A day will come when I’m no longer here and in time anyone who ever knew me will be gone.  And, it’s my hope the people who come after me and long into the future will find memories of a place that can carry them through their most difficult and dark days.  Where for just a moment as they’re gazing at a sunset or breathing in the smell of freshly cut hay or listening to crickets beneath the stars they’ll feel secure and dream of loving family, hot food on the dinner table and a warm bed for a long night’s sleep.

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