There is an old hymn/country song called “This Old House” by Stuart Hamblen? A few lines may jog old-old people’s memories. “Ain’t gonna need this house no longer/Ain’t gonna need this house no more/Ain’t got time to fix the shingles/Ain’t got time to fix the floor…” As I prepared to make a post that’s mostly an album of photos of my old home, it started running through my head.
Yes, I know, another post or two or three this trip of photos of ‘the old place’ is repeating myself for the umpteenth time…but hey, this blog is basically the photo journal of a little old lady—and we elders are granted dispensation by the sages to repeat and repeat and repeat.
Another summer, another Minnesota visit, one of these days to be my last. I am only moderately sentimental about old home, old family, old friends—me and us back then—until one of those moments hit when I desperately want it all back, just exactly like it was!
I make constant references to the Aristotle (?) quote, “Give me a child until [s]he is seven and I will show you the [wo]man.” And I think about it often when I’m up here in home-territory. I feel such a perfect example of that seven-year-old; the one who loved books, and pencils and crayons and mom and dad and brother and our dogs and the ever-changing weather and bread and butter. According to my mom I was that person from age two at least: the paper and crayons part, the frost on the windows part, the bread and butter part. I was a stubborn solitary child with stringy hair who didn’t like food very much. And I think I always loved trees, didn’t need to know much about what kind, just loved green and safety and shade perhaps.
So anyway, I’m still exactly like all that; at least it seems that way to me.
This summer my Northwoods time is a little longer than usual. And my sons and grandson will be here for a week so we’ll go up home, up to visit the ‘old place’ a few times…more photos of a peaceful disintegration of a good home and many many trees to follow.
“This old house was home and comfort/As we fought the storms of life/This old house once rang with laughter/This old house heard many shouts…” Well, maybe I’m more sentimental than I admit…. But just in case I was falling too far into maudlin-land, I took along a road trip companion and listened to “With god on our side” to take me back to American reality.
