Losing Things in My Old Age

Wow! It took re-installing AOL to get back to my blog, but it is worth the slower computing time if I am going to slowly--or not so slowly--forget how to get into things. Now I can write down my sign in and password in my little white book so it won't get lost.

Memories, whether good, bad, or warped by age or perspective, are worth keeping around. We seem to learn more when we have some kind of associations with our past or with some kind of past. For instance, I think back now on the trip to Scotland, London, and Paris that Jennifer Ostand and I took in March. The best memories are of her delight in seeing some of the things she has always wanted to see. If we missed some experiences for whatever reason, we still were able to enjoy one another's company. That alone was worth the entire trip.

Eventually I will write down some of the impressions I had of Edinburgh, the Highlands, the castles, churches, graveyards, museums, and the people we met. Paris, not surprisingly, was another story altogether! Why I was surprised by the size and quality of life there is probably caused by my lack of understanding how the French look at their homeland.

If one thing stood out about our trip more than any other, it is SIZE. Living in Texas, we drove home from DFW airport on freeways that were spread out among green belts of fields, livestock, housing projects, large or small homes, and just acres of room. In our travels we saw nothing that was not nailed down or fenced in or otherwise restricted in size or permanence. Of course, things in Europe have a history. The buildings have been there for centuries. The only thing America has by comparison are the Spanish missions. Ours in a young country. I cannot really ever imagine NOT needing wheels to get from one place to another in our state. Even last year when I went to the East Coast and enjoyed the history of Williamsburg and Jamestown, nothing was all that restricted by borders of encroaching civilization. America is just big in the most immense sense. I think her heart is similar. Maybe our hearts have developed along with our expansion of borders, but whatever the reason, our country has not become a narrow strip of scenery and history. We are still learning how to develop our corner of the world.