Remembering the Old Stomping Grounds

Long Relief has been silent for several days because Mrs. Lefty and I took a mini vacation. She had a couple days off, so we drove to my hometown (somewhere west of the Rockies, and north of Mexico but south of Canada) to relax for a couple of days.

I am always glad to return to my old home. The visits remind me that I am a hick at heart. The drive takes only about 5 hours from where we live now, but the journey takes you a hundred years into the past, to a place where names like “Jawbone Canyon,” “Fossil Falls” and “No Name” are still in style, where you can’t find a Starbucks, and where the opening days of the fishing and deer hunting seasons are more important than Christmas.

I take pride in being a backwater hick. It gives me an opportunity to look down my nose at people whose scrambled eggs always came from the grocery store rather than the chicken house out back, or who simply hook up to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant for their winter heat rather than cutting and hauling wood for the stove. Of course, I can’t be too critical of people who live the soft city life, because that’s my life now.

But it is always nice to get back to the hometown and remember those times that--in my memory, at least--seemed so much more simple and pure. On the other hand, there was a lot more animal shit to clean up.