You can go home again

This past weekend found Miss Trixie and Ol’ Dutch traversing the plains of North Texas and through Oklahoma’s Arbuckle Mountains in a journey back in time. For it was home to Kansas for me and the 70th anniversary of the founding of my home church.

Now while this may not seem such a great celebration to most of you as churches have been around much longer, this was special because it was on that weekend some seven decades ago that my dad, Fast Freddy, founded this church. And eventually a Bible College.

At 92 my dad is still going strong and so he was invited to have the service there. All 29 of us descendants attended. We all stayed together in one huge mansion-like facility and so it was “noisy,” which is what you get when we get together.

My earliest memories as a child were being with my mother’s extended family, all talking at the same time, yet everyone was able to keep track of what was being said.

The same is true for this modern version of our family. For Ol’ Dutch, though, hearing all that conversation amplified by a hearing aid means it is loud and brain shattering at times. Add to this mix a plethora of little kids running and screaming and playing and you can only imagine the noise level we generated.

The one thing about being hard of hearing is a person can shut off the darned device which then results in a seemingly happy expression on your face all day long while others are suffering from noise exposure.

While other folks suffer with their nerves being attacked and frayed almost to the breaking point, Ol’ Dutch — either by turning off the hearing aids or running out of battery in them — can sit and watch the mayhem around him and smile.

The only problem with that is when one of the kids gets in trouble, I can't for the life of me figure out why as it was all calm and quiet to me. My grands always seek out grandpa for consolation and, unless it was some catastrophic error on their part, I always take their side and dry their tears.

Which is a lot like God, I guess, as He also does that for us even though we may deserve a good spanking from Him from time to time.

My dad led the singing and preached a great sermon. Many people who have attended there for the past 40 years were in attendance, so it was good to see all of them again.

We even got by the entire weekend without a family fight and only a few kid tears, so yes, miracles are still occurring.

A man by the name of Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel called ‘“You Can't Go Home Again.” The premise was that times in the past can be remembered fondly, but can never be experienced again.

But poor old Thomas, who passed at the ripe old age of 38, was never fortunate enough to have gone back to a reunion of the sort we had this past weekend as we were able to do just that. For we told funny stories and cried a few tears over the many memories we shared. At least for a moment, we were able to go home once again.

So, it's off to Texas we go following in the footsteps of Charles Goodnight and Davy Crockett and others who somehow thought that was good idea at least at the moment. And the yellow rose of Texas herself, Miss Trixie, seated beside me singing the accolades of the great state of her birth. And honestly, only a state of that size could ever hold someone as great as Miss Trixie.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com.