Here

My first memory of the Great Depression was the freight trains, each with dozens of men riding on the tops of cars or inside the empty boxcars. All were going “someplace else!” I noticed that the trains with the most men riding on them were the trains heading west. At that time, I always pictured that someplace else as always a place out west. Being a little kid at the time, I always pictured all those men, riding on those trains, when they got to that someplace else, they would change clothes, buy a 10 gallon hat, wear cowboy boots and shoot Indians! I never could understand that shoot Indians part, but that was what all the men “out west” were doing each Saturday when I would take my 10 pennies and buy a ticket to the double feature picture show. I understood that what they were doing was good because the good men were always wearing those big white hats and all the bad men were either wearing feathered headdresses or black hats! One strange thing that I always remember; was it was always just men riding on those trains. I can’t remember seeing one woman! Several of those men I talked to told me that when they made it out there, they would send for the wife and kids. It made me wonder if that someplace else was like a swimming pool that the man had to dip a toe into to test the water temperature before the family could jump in the water with them. I also wondered where those wives and kids were staying until the men found that “someplace else.” Several of the kids at my school had to live with other families while their dads were “out looking.” But, you must remember I was just a little kid at the time and little kids weren’t supposed to worry about such things! But, I did and still do! Later in my life, I find many still talking about the someplace else of their dreams. I also hear many say that they want “to get away from it all!” Even today, I find many unhappy, and many continuously dreaming about going someplace else, any place else! Why not try to make our here more attractive to each of us? When I’m here; I know which side of the bedroom the bathroom is on. Even in the dark. If I want a snack all I have to do is open the door of my refrigerator, and I know right where that snack is. If I eat something that doesn’t agree with me, I know which shelf the Tums are on, they too even in the dark! I’m just more comfortable at my here than when I’m someplace else. And as I think about it, wasn’t this here where I am today, the someplace else, for me, when I came to it? Yes, that was before I had moved into it! I wonder why many of us look upon our here as boring and any someplace else as exciting? Could it be; we have made ourselves boring and unexciting and we expect others in that someplace else to provide the excitement we no longer find in ourselves? We find those others providing our excitement for only a short time, and then it’s time to start looking another, a more exciting someplace else. Most of us would pick a someplace else for short time but we have to realize is up to each of us to keep our here the exciting place it once has. And to keep that excitement for a long time! Truthfully, is it the someplace else that makes us feel better? Or, do we feel that we can be a different someone else when we get there? When we get to that someplace else we usually find everything squeaky clean and everything in order, but how long do you think it would take us to make it just another here? It’s hard to imagine our here is as exciting as a someplace else, but wasn’t it once? Now tell me, who really made that here the way it is today? What or who are we really trying to run away from or look for? My Grandma use to tell me,”Be careful how you make your nest. You may have to live in it for a long time!”