View From the Front Porch- June 2, 2012

 Nothing ever felt quite as secure as the feeling of Grandpa's arms around you, and the good smell of his Prince Albert smoking tobacco coming from the ever present pipe. People of the soil had a quiet confidence about them that inspired trust and confidence in those around them. I was two years old here, at my Grandfather Ed Johnson's Kansas farm, and that is awful young to be remembering, but I do remember the good feeling of trust and security. Family was everything in 1938, the Great Depression was soon to end with the explosion of bombs over Pearl Harbor and the start of the War that was supposed to end all Wars, but never has, young men would leave the farm to fight on beaches in South Sea Islands and European forests, and experience a world they never dreamed existed. After that first bomb fell, going down the smokestack of the USS Arizona and trapping all those sailor boys from the heartland, the world changed forever, and has been going down hill ever since. They died for a freedom they didn't even know they were fighting for, a cause brought by a zealous terrorist enemy, with cowardly intent and a murderous strategy. So, terrorism is not a new happening, actually we have been under some kind of threat by some group or other ever since we formed this great country. Despots and insane leaders of angry, dissatisfied followers of whatever seems to catch their fancy, have always hated our way of life and wanted to change it. But, you know, I can go back in time to that 1938 moment of trust and security, and remember that good feeling of Grandpa's arms around me. Sitting on my front porch, a little fog over the creek, the sun starting to peek through the sycamore trees, birds singing and Buck sleeping at my feet, as the deer silently slip by, careful not to wake the sleeping dog, to go eat clover over in the field before they bed under the cedar trees for the heat of the day. Each generation finds its own Grandpa arms, its own smell of home that will lodge in their memory bank to be revisited in years down the road, but for me, that cold Winter day in Kansas, and the smell of Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco, will always have the prime spot.

You never know what seemingly insignificant happening will grow to be your favorite memory....and "somewhere over the rainbow" you will know you are not in Kansas anymore. 

                                                                                                                                    -Stan