There's No Place Like Home

In "The Wizard of OZ" Dorothy had to click her heels together and chant "there's no place like home, there's no place like home" to return from the Land of Oz to Kansas. All I had to do was catch a Southwest Airline flight to make my way to Circleville, Ohio to visit the Circleville Pumpkin Show. This year we grew a record size pumpkin of 1,635 pounds.

I hadn't been to the king of all festivals for 7 years and it was great to get back home just in time to see the beautiful foilage and again arouse my sense of smell to the aroma of all the food being prepared at the Pumpkin Show. That was one of the main reasons to make the trip and try to once again rekindle my young at heart spirit and try to recall way back when I didn't have to wear glasses to read or wear hearing aids. As I wondered and looked around everything wasn't the same. Yes the young of heart was there, the little ones were enjoying the rides and the fun as I am sure I did when I was their age. Instead of standing and watching the parades I could sit thanks to my friend Ron bringing chairs to sit on along the parade route. His exact words were "I'm too old to stand." Wow! I am a few months older than he. So I must be too old to stand also.

Before arriving at the downtown festival Ron and I drove over to the old neighborhood where we were part of the hellraisers at that time. All was not the same. Our stomping grounds have deteriorated to the point we were ashamed of how it now looked. Houses that were once the best homes in the neighborhood were some of the worst. The trees that once lined the streets have all been removed now and looked bare. "There's no place like home" did not have much of an impact anymore. I continued to think about the looks of the street where I once lived as we wondered downdtown hoping to catch some old friends and acquaintances. What happend in the last 45 years? Like everything and everybody it just aged. The magic of being home never materialized.

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