“Don’t you know, you can never go home again.”
An off hand remark by Australian-British journalist Ella Winter to Thomas Wolfe. It is an idea that first crossed my threshold when Rod Serling explored it in the 5th episode of the Twilight Zone. Martin Sloan tried to go home to the amusement park of his youth and his younger self kicked him out.
Rod Serling - Narrator: [Closing Narration] Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things, but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives - trying to go home again. And also like all men, perhaps there'll be an occasion - maybe a summer night sometime - when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind, there'll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he'll smile then, too, because he'll know that it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory, not too important really, some laughing ghosts that would cross a man's mind.
This recent Columbus weekend, Barbara, Judd and I went to a spaghetti supper at the community hall in Chebeague Island, Maine to benefit a family recently visited by tragedy. The town kids served and they were anxious to please. The main course was tasty. The music was local and an unexpected treat. The desert was whoopie pies and they were better than I have had since Mom made them when I was a boy. Maybe it was pies, or the magical semblance to the many community dinners of my youth, but as we left the hall and the kids played and laughed on the lawn beneath the trees by the community hall, I was for a moment catching a glimpse of the parks and merry go rounds of my youth.
But the accompanying wish wasn’t to be in another time or place but complete contentment with where I was. Much advice is offered us on what to expect on life’s journey and most of it is contradictory. The same people who warn us about not being able to go home also opine that life is a circle. It is. Not a perfect one. It doesn’t bring us back to where we started like a boomerang because that place is gone, but the similarities are seldom subtle. Barbara and I deliberately decided to move back to Maine and we looked all over and then ended up about 5 miles from where I was raised. So as summer begrudgingly moves aside for winter in 2018 I find myself enjoying Casco Bay with my dog and keeping a list of chores to be accomplished before the snow flies.
And Barbara and I take pleasure in making new friends on this island, folks who remind us of the richness of real community which is Maine at its best. And with no disrespect to Tom or Rod, as I walked out of the Chebeague town office this week, a registered Maine Democrat, I said to myself, “It's grand to be home again!
An off hand remark by Australian-British journalist Ella Winter to Thomas Wolfe. It is an idea that first crossed my threshold when Rod Serling explored it in the 5th episode of the Twilight Zone. Martin Sloan tried to go home to the amusement park of his youth and his younger self kicked him out.
Rod Serling - Narrator: [Closing Narration] Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things, but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives - trying to go home again. And also like all men, perhaps there'll be an occasion - maybe a summer night sometime - when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind, there'll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he'll smile then, too, because he'll know that it is just an errant wish, some wisp of memory, not too important really, some laughing ghosts that would cross a man's mind.
This recent Columbus weekend, Barbara, Judd and I went to a spaghetti supper at the community hall in Chebeague Island, Maine to benefit a family recently visited by tragedy. The town kids served and they were anxious to please. The main course was tasty. The music was local and an unexpected treat. The desert was whoopie pies and they were better than I have had since Mom made them when I was a boy. Maybe it was pies, or the magical semblance to the many community dinners of my youth, but as we left the hall and the kids played and laughed on the lawn beneath the trees by the community hall, I was for a moment catching a glimpse of the parks and merry go rounds of my youth.
But the accompanying wish wasn’t to be in another time or place but complete contentment with where I was. Much advice is offered us on what to expect on life’s journey and most of it is contradictory. The same people who warn us about not being able to go home also opine that life is a circle. It is. Not a perfect one. It doesn’t bring us back to where we started like a boomerang because that place is gone, but the similarities are seldom subtle. Barbara and I deliberately decided to move back to Maine and we looked all over and then ended up about 5 miles from where I was raised. So as summer begrudgingly moves aside for winter in 2018 I find myself enjoying Casco Bay with my dog and keeping a list of chores to be accomplished before the snow flies.
And Barbara and I take pleasure in making new friends on this island, folks who remind us of the richness of real community which is Maine at its best. And with no disrespect to Tom or Rod, as I walked out of the Chebeague town office this week, a registered Maine Democrat, I said to myself, “It's grand to be home again!