Time Has Made A change

Time makes a change in the old home place...That has been something I have heard all my life and only recently realized how true that statement really is. When I drive through Parksville, Kentucky the little town I grew up in, I am almost ready to shed tears...Where are all the children? In my youth, there were many children in that small town. Where are the stores where we got our food and our occasional treat of a soda pop and candy bar? I always looked for the largest drink for my nickel so I always grabbed the Royal Crown Cola and a huge Moon Pie. I made my ten cents go as far as I could stretch it.

 

Where are the trains that once rolled through town on an hourly schedule? Where is the schoolhouse that was the hub of the community? Where are the old folk that "hung out" at the once thriving stores? Where is the town? Nothing much is left. Storefronts all boarded up; many of the homes are gone or standing empty. Sadly, the old mill is gone.

 There are no children out riding bicycles or playing softball in the fields during the summer. No children or adults riding their sleigh down Cemetery hill in the winter. The town could not wait for the first big snow so they could have an all day Saturday to sleigh ride, drink hot chocolate, and make bonfires for warming their hands and feet and roasting marshmallows. After a short rest they would make their way back up the hill to come back down again.  What a joy ride to come sailing down that hill!

The country road called the Knob, where I lived for most of my youth and beyond has changed the most. It too, is bare of children; most of the homes are either gone, or abandoned. The thriving little community where at least thirty families once lived has gone back to nature. Land where houses stood with garden spaces, barns, outbuildings, and fields, are now forest with no proof that a family with a thriving small farm ever lived there. The people who kept it alive have either left this world, or moved away. Nothing is the same.   

It got me to thinking; the bodies we live in go through the same changes. We are born, grow, thrive, become old, and then one day, we are gone. What did we accomplish, what do we leave behind?  Do we leave proof that we even existed. Most assuredly, we live through the memories of our children, grandchildren, and those who remember us fondly.

A hundred years from now the only proof we will have we were here is a name, date of birth, and date of death, on a tombstone. The way I See It, earthly changes are not that important - as long as this vessel of bones is ready to move on to a happy place where nothing will ever change is all that really matters.