Connection …

I recently delivered a special needs cat to a friend in my hometown. As we unloaded kitty’s paraphernalia, I realized that I had forgotten his treats. The next morning, I proceeded directly to the local Walmart. Now, if you have not been in a Walmart “super store,” then I suggest that you visit one. On a hazy morning, I would anticipate difficulty in seeing from one side of the store to the other. Having no idea where I might find pet supplies, I approached an employee for assistance. She offered to guide me the considerable distance to the pet supplies, and I accepted. While she was not yet my age, the lady was comfortably over fifty. Thinking that I might be standing next to graduate of the local high school, from my high school, I asked her, “Are you from here?”  “No,” she replied, “I was raised in Grampian” (Grampian is a nearby village in the Pennsylvania highlands). I too had grown up near Grampian, a place that contributed heavily to my childhood memories. After making that known, I asked, “Do you remember Gus Chelgren, who ran the local meat market”? Yes, she did. “And Ward McDonald, the radio and TV repair man?” Yes again. We weaved our way from aisle to aisle, navigating diagonally across the store. “Who was the guy who cut hair in the shop with Ritt Wirts,” I asked? “Dick Flynn,” she shot back (I would view his gravestone inside the hour). “And what about my uncle Richard Thomas, who, for years, taught school in Grampian?” “I’ve heard of him,” she allowed, “but he was a bit before my time.” We soon arrived at pet supplies, I thanked her for her help, picked up some salmon treats, and headed for the front of the store. In the parking lot, I was surprised by a feeling that was almost foreign to me. I had just experienced connection. Home is that rare place where one can encounter a stranger and, in a matter of minutes, you become aware of your roots … the kind that do not grow in today’s mobile society. As I write this, I am back in the state of Maryland, in a place that I would normally identify as my home. I am now aware, however, that nothing exists here that contributed to my childhood memories … quite simply, to the making me. The people that I know here are transients. Like me, they have come from somewhere else; they have lived here and they have worked here, but they are not from here. We have shared days, months, and sometime years together, but our connection lacks some essential ingredient … perhaps it is that ingredient that makes a memory worthy of nostalgia. In today’s world, we move to where the jobs are, often to some unappealing place where our specialty just happens to be in short supply. Our mobility brings about a form of isolation … we find ourselves far from the soft soil of youth … where one easily develops deep roots.

Driving away, I experienced this conflict: Tomorrow, I would go home, to my wife, to my house, to my church and to my cats … but today … I was home … for real. My sincere thanks to the lady in Walmart, who just happened to be from Grampian …