I hope you had a fun Labor Day weekend. We did. We drove home to Nebraska to visit with family. It felt like summer when we left, 3 days later it is autumn.
I have always enjoyed people-watching. It is a great pastime for long waits in airports. We've discovered that other good places to people-watch are at truck stops and rest areas. I talked to a woman with no neck at one large rest area. She is the janitor and cleans it 3 times a day, seven days a week, year-round; yet she was perky and friendly. We met her both coming and going on our 1200 mile round trip. She was cheerful and talkative both times. Truckers are also interesting...they come in all shapes and generally large sizes. The next time you are on a driving trip, pause at a truck stop or rest area and just watch the people as they come and go from their vehicles.....where they stop to eat, what they eat, what they are wearing (PJ's and pink fuzzy slippers more often than not), how they look compared to the people in your environs.
Have you ever shopped in a truck stop? There are all kinds of cool paraphernalia, gifts, and odds and ends...things you will never find collected anywhere else on earth and that you didn't even know you needed.
We passed a semi hauling stacks of empty wire cages with white feathers swirling in the wind. Dean said he had previously seen 2 semi loads carrying the same types of cages, but stuffed with live chickens. He hadn't pointed them out to me as he knew they would make me sad. Thousands of living, breathing birds had a few tortured fearsome last hours while we drove. It did make me sad. He knows me well.
We got to watch a great high school football game, interrupted at half-time by severe Nebraska weather causing the second half to be postponed until the next day. Because of lightning we missed out on seeing the marching band's half-time show and the performance by our nephew and niece. Another one of our nephews played on the line for the visiting football team. He is a starting center and noseguard. He played extremely well, but his team lost. It's early in the season, though, and can be made up.
We stayed with my brother's family the first night, game night. Then we went to my parent's farm the next day. Dad drove us around the surrounding sections and we saw how the landscape has changed. Entire farmsteads have been plowed under to make way for more corn. My Dad was born where there is now just a corn field. Many roads are now "minimum maintenance" and have eroded into soft dirt canyons. The remaining farmplaces have no connections to the farmland surrounding them. They are small rural dwellings, islands in the sea of corn.
Dean and I did get out for a longish walk/jog. It is so quiet everywhere, and peaceful. No traffic noises. Just the occasional "moo" from pastured cattle, their sounds traveling far in the quiet air. We saw lots of monarch butterflies flitting around a shelter-belt, as well, and fed my brother's massive Saint Bernard, a friendly mountain of a dog. We got to visit with 4 of my 5 brothers.
My Mom grows an excellent garden and fed us well with tons of fresh produce. She and Dad loaded up our car with more of the same. We are really enjoying it. I miss not being able to grow a garden where I now live. Mom has always had a fantastic garden, and fresh-picked is best.
We are Nebraskans at root. Going there is going home, although we've been away for decades.
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| My Mom; My Nephew Sam, the football lineman: My Dad |
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