You Can't Go Home Again

            As a child I remember hearing idioms such as "a penny for your thoughts", "too big for your breeches", and "you can't go home again".  What????  I thought adults were such morons.  First of all, I was always certain that my thoughts were worth more than just a penny.  "breeches" was a term we hadn't used and so I had no idea what that was.  And "you can't go home again"?  Of course, you can.  In my childish mind, I took the phrase literally.  If I went to a neighbor's house, for instance, I was expected to come home.  Even as a college student I knew that I'd be going home again.  It wasn't until many decades later that I finally figured it out.

            "Home" is not necessarily a residence and family.  The "home" referred to is the past.  It's not just time that has put the distance between us but the evolutions and economical rise and fall that have contributed to a sense of loss as well.  I think this should be a topic for my brother's blog, but as he has not posted to his blog for over two years, I guess I will attempt to write about it on my own.

            He has posted many pictures to facebook.  Mostly memorabilia from 1960's and 1970's.  Even those two decades seemed to have differences in neighborhood and community.  Our Midvale neighborhood was fairly new.  I don't know how many houses existed on the entire street, but I think at least 30 at the top half of the street where we lived.  I remember many pregnant mothers, and all stay-at-home at that.  I knew of only one mother who worked outside of the home.  Other than that each of us seemed to be raised by all of the mothers on our street as there were many children, activities and spending time with one another.

            We all went to the same neighboring newly built elementary school.  Doors were left unlocked on all sides of the school and not just the front door.  School shootings were unheard of.  We didn't have school lockdowns. I think more field trips had been offered in the '60's  than were offered in the 70's when Corey and Kayla attended. But I could be wrong. 

            The Salt Lake Tribune offered pages to announce births and weddings.  We had a black and white TV which offered three stations: NBC, abc, and CBS.  We would drive up to Grandma's house at least once a week.  At that time her house was located behind the capital building.  My brother and I would always have great adventures there with my cousins.  We would explore the house inside and out.  

            Many years after my grandpa had passed and my aunt moved out on her own, the family talked grandma into moving.  It really was a huge house for one person to take care of.  I think even more work was required for the upkeep of the yard.  She did not move until after Corey was born, but he will never have the same memories that I did of that house on Edgecomb Dr. It's really too bad.  I was told that Grandma had contributed to the design of the house.

            I think our visits to Grandma were made more frequently when she moved to Murray.  I was thrilled to learn I could ride my bike there - not that I did it often.  Usually, we went by car, but I can remember taking the bus a few times also.  It was the condominium in Murray that Corey and Kayla might think of as "Grandma's house".  After she passed the condominium was sold.  It's still a sensitive subject for a few family members.

            Spending time with all of my neighbors was part of my childhood.  I remember going to others' houses and they would come to ours.  Our neighbors, the Birds, would take us to American Fork with them in July for the Steel Days parade and activities.  Although it's been several decades since I have been, I am happy to see that this is still a community event - (here) 

            Jenna has grown up in a society of many working mothers and hasn't always had the option of spending time with neighbors the way that I did.  We don't just drop by on people the way we did then.  Play dates need to be scheduled.  Appointments need to be made. 

            The school she attends in Myrtle Creek is quite different from the ones she'd attend in Salt Lake.  Still, there are lock downs and precautions that didn't seem necessary when I was growing up.  Oh, I'm not saying that wicked things didn't take place during the 60's and 70's, but nothing like they are now.  Corey and I have had a hard time letting go of the house where we were raised.  I saw a picture on facebook recently of two police cars parked in front of a house in my old neighborhood.  The caption warned others that the resident had been recently burglarized.  I'm sorry to read about the intrusion, but it does make it easier for me to deal with losing the house.  There are many members of the neighborhood that I know and still have contact with, but even more that I do not.

            So while many things (both tangible and not) have been lost, others have been gained.  I, for one, am grateful that technology has made the vacuum easier to lift along with other appliances.  Retrieving some items from closet or cupboard seemed to be a chore in itself - but then having to use them to complete the chore . . . well, I am happy I don't have to do the same heavy lifting as my mom or her mom before her.  I am grateful for having so information at my fingertips - literally, but horrified about it at the same time.  Research seems to be so much easier with sites such as Google, but often it seems there is more personal information offered that it seems like an invasion of privacy.  For instance, I don't know the exact location of Roland's two oldest daughters, but perhaps enough that I could track them down if I had the finances or desire to do so.

            They have moved around so often I don't know that they even have a sense of home.  I wonder if they even have any memories of where they'd been and who they've met.  I don't suppose it's easy to "go home again" if you've never had one.

           For more idioms, you can click here for meaning.  Unfortunately, this site does not provide the origin.  Some are self-explanatory.  You are encouraged to look up origins on your own.

Silly Parade

I do hope not to offend anyone in Myrtle Creek by calling their parade silly.  It's just that I am used to bands and floats (see here) and spacing and not everything clumped together.  I certainly did take a lot of pictures - but not as many as I had the first year we lived here.  We did not even attend last year.

The Friends of Myrtle Creek had marched in the Rodeo parade (see here) on the 17th and had planned on walking in today's parade, but with manning the booths and lack of availability, it felt like their were too few to accomplish our desire - so we opted out.  

I don't think the parade started on time.  Roland made certain we had ice cream as we had two years ago.

The parade stared out with six firetrucks.  I evidently took nine pictures:

most had passengers who threw candy.  Roland got a Frisbee from one thrower:

followed by a series of monster trucks.  I took a picture of the first one:

followed by five others.  I did take a picture of this rig pulling two monster cars only because Roland had made a comment about the expense of one pulling the expense of the other.

Six more monster trucks passed before I took this picture:

I stopped counting between this and the last two show off cars:

Next came Miss Douglas County:

Followed by a series of classic cars.  I may have gotten all of them.

And here's what followed the classic cars:

This last truck was pulling a trailer.  I guess these next two would be considered the floats?

Both had been issued trophies.  I wonder if the Friends of the Myrtle Creek Library would have received a trophy.  Probably.

We didn't get to see a log truck in the parade as we had the first year (see here).  But we did see more walkers than in prior years.

This last truck was  followed by five more of it's kind.

Hope you enjoyed our parade. 

Two Saturdays

       Today was the forth annual Citywide yard sale.  It is my first year having knowledge of it.  There is a map on facebook and a list of locations within Myrtle Creek and Tri City.  I would think it would make for a more meaningful to have all the streets downtown  or all along Old Pacific - not get-in-your-car-and-drive=-from-location-to-location - that can be done on any given day . . . but whatever.  I was/am obviously not in charge.
       The Friends of Myrtle Creek Library had access to one of the buildings downtown.  The yard sale (from what I understand) is normally held in August.  I don't know why it got changed to today.  It was rather unproductive, I thought.  I don't guess the woman in charge realized that today would be the hottest day of the year (and hopefully the temperature won't ever rise above what it was today.  Over 100 degrees fahrenheit.  That is SOOOOO wrong. This state is not supposed to get that hot.) which could have been a factor.  It was also the day for the big golf tournament (or so I was told; really not into that whole golf thing)
       Roland went with me to the old laundry (where the Friends of Myrtle Creek Library were gathered) and hung out for a couple of hours, but left as new friends started filtering in and customers had been rare all morning.  It wasn't necessary for that many friends to be present.
       Jenna has been at camp for four days and returned this afternoon.  She missed out on the yard sales, but even the heat is bothering her at the moment. 

        Last week we marched in the rodeo parade to promote the Children's Summer Reading Program sponsored by the Friends of the Myrtle Creek Library

Jenna and I didn't have the opportunity to make our own

tutus as we had gone out of town

These were taken at the school parking lot

as we were waiting for those ahead of us

to start filing out

not a totally accurate map, but you get the gist

         I understand we finally got the city's approval to use the designated library building.  We open on July 3.

Party On

                      

It has raining off and on for almost six weeks.  Mostly on, and I'm fine with it, except was hoping it would not be raining between 5:30 and 7:30 last night.

Yesterday was quite a busy day for members of our community. Fortunately it was a nice day.  The fire trucks could be heard all day as they offered rides to youth.  At least that’s what I heard.  After we returned home from the breakfast, we pretty much stayed put until about 5:30 and then headed toward downtown Myrtle Creek.

The community puts on a light parade the 2^nd Saturday of each December; they’ve been doing it for over 35 years now.  The parade starts in Riddle and goes up to Old Pacific Highway up to Riverside, down Neal, Division and end at Main Street -       - or so I thought.

Last year we had watched it from the corner of Neal Lane and Riverside – though I had planned on standing on Neal across from Jenny – where Jaime caught the bus.  But Roland had met a group that said we could come join them.  It was cold last year, and raining.  Sometime later that night, the rain turned into snow.  We haven’t had snow this year like we did last year.

This year we live within walking distance of Old Pacific Highway, and thought we could just go down there to see the parade about 6:00 or so.  But the brethren that was just put in as new counselor in the bishopric invited all the members to come to his state farm office on Main Street to see the parade.  I was surprised by the amount of people that had driven up from Riddle where the parade started. In fact, I think the majority of people that were there had driven much of the same distance as the parade itself.  There were at least two families there that had moved to Myrtle Creek since last December and had never seen the parade before.

I must say that it had been a great day starting out the breakfast with so many awesome ward family members and ending the day visiting with many of those same family friends.  And I will see them again today.

I wish my family were here to experience this same joy.