We rurally-raised elders remember when people went ‘visiting.’ It went kind of like this at our place: Dad might say “Let’s go over to Knute’s and get some coffee.” Or Mom wondered if she could get that recipe for molasses cake from Helen. Or Robert or I wanted to go play somewhere besides our own fields and woods and hay loft and back bedrooms. So I get way too country-girl-sentimental when I come up here I know and start sounding like a wordy Norman Rockwell. I forget to mention that half the time we probably didn’t have enough gas in the car to both go visiting and still get the cream into town to sell on Saturday. Or that Mom was usually so exhausted from her 24-7 work day maintaining a farm and family that she frequently fell asleep over the cake and coffee spread. But I can see it all through the rosy haze of long ago if I want to ….

Now people ‘drop by’ or meet us for coffee or dinner or Skype, text, email and post. I, not being a particularly social person, mostly prefer this new world…still…visiting had its charms and certainly its tastes didn’t it?

Yesterday we ‘visited.’ Because we are up north and it’s still possible. Back in the day—when I was a child—we often visited the Week’s, Agnes and Knute or Louie and Helen. Yesterday we spent a nostalgic afternoon with that same Helen and two of her ‘girls.’ Revisiting a time. We chatted, reminisced, looked at photos, drank coffee and ate a lot of cake.

Here’s what VISITING look like…