A Different Perspective: 6/12/2024

Last Saturday, I was headed back home to an antique tractor and engine show. A variety of perspectives always come to mind: the things that are so very different and the few that have not changed and never will, at least in my lifetime.

The springtime mountains, still snow-topped down into their shaded valleys, and the greening hills and plains flowing away from them, with subtle hints and vivid splashes of wildflowers, coming back into the bloom of their endless life cycle. Mature cows and steers munch away on sweet, tender grass, doing the necessities of existence. They seemingly ignore the fresh joy and exploration many new calf crops enjoy, romping around their boring mothers.

The old haystacks and hand-collected square bales are replaced by rows of big round bales, now wrapped in plastic. I drove a much better car over wider, smoother highways, faster and safer than I used to. Cars and trucks zip by in an instant, and I yearn for the days when everyone waved.

Those better highways have taken a toll on the small towns they pass through. Back when it took longer to travel between them and in from scattered farms and ranches, almost all of them had at least one automobile dealer, farm implement sales and repair facility, general store with almost all the necessities, and feed store. The railroad towns had tall wooden grain elevators and feed lots that paid the farmers and ranchers for their efforts.

I pass through now, and all are gone, many with nothing left but a weedy lot where vibrant activities once thrived. Most traffic passes through, the elevators are, at best, unpainted and often gone, and the tracks beside them are rusty or torn up. From the days when people walked everywhere, there were only a few pedestrians, and you never see the amiable dogs that used to wander freely.

Coming into my hometown, the drive-in theater and the fabulous supper club are leveled lots, and both the big overpass and the railroad tracks it cleared are gone, replaced by a bland intersection. The airport, built in WWII for training B-17 bomber crews, left the town with a magnificent airport and commercial air service for over twenty years, but now it is just for local and transient pilots. There are more weeds and weathering concrete, but it is a great dragstrip.

Continuing into town, what used to be empty space, where we hunted gophers after school (and no one thought about the rifles in our lockers!), is now the major commercial district.

Down Main Street, the only businesses remaining from my youth are the movie theater and a couple of bars.

Again, not nearly the people afoot, but my mind populates the town with all of the people I knew in my younger days, much simpler and idyllic times I just took for granted. No matter where we are raised, life is just normal to us, and we don’t appreciate the blessings until we’re older when circumstances have changed, and our perspective has been shaped and refocused by the experiences of life. My mind is flooded with memories that bring conflicting emotions.

I’m incredibly happy and grateful that I could live in the best of places, in the best of times, surrounded by the best of people. At the same time, I had pangs of regret that I didn’t appreciate it much more then, especially the people who shaped and guided my early life. I loved and appreciated them, but not nearly to the depth I’ve come to see now that I’m their age.

Old or young, look around you in Whitehall and appreciate all that’s good.