TIME TRAVELER

BABY BOOMERS SEE YOUR WORLD THROUGH NEW EYES

(When a facebook friend is also the first English teacher you had who improved the language, pay attention. In his words:)

‘Home.’

Quite a word.

I just traveled ‘home’ with my aging little brother up the Columbia River Gorge to Arlington/Hermiston in Oregon’s high desert.

The land remains the same (except for those humongous white windmills that dominate both sides of the river).

The Arlington cemetery overflows with friends and fellow-Wetherells.

Hermiston High School is unrecognizable to a forgotten boy who learned, laughed, loved and cried there over fifty years ago.

The ‘new’ people who now live there paid little or no attention to two old visitors to their home.

The old run-down house we called home gave up being run-down, disappeared under the eraser called time, and is now just a faded memory to a very few.

I enoyed my lonely trip home but have returned to my Home, North Bend, where people (most, anyway) smile when I pass.

I still recognize everything.

Not a windmill in sight, not one of my family is in the cemetery, and the mighty Pacific Ocean continues to pound the shores.

‘Home.’

Quite a word.

It’s good to be Home.

Thank you.

TGWB