Blog 3020 – 02.05.2024

Down Home

Today’s song reminds me of a poem that I learned as a boy: “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself has said, this is my own my native land.” Those words by Sir Walter Scott speak of a natural tendency to see the place where we grew up as special and indeed most all of us do. I have traveled pretty widely, having visited all fifty of the United States of America, five provinces in Canada, Mexico, and nine other countries outside the western hemisphere. I often remark that in all of those places the residents think their homeland is the most precious place on earth, holy ground.

Fond memories of family and friends down home make us dream of going home. It think many picture heaven as a great homecoming. John Denver in his song Country Roads sings, “Almost heaven, West Virginia.” Most of the family and the friends that I grew up with in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee have gone on. One of my best boyhood buddies is a long time resident of Portland, Washington as I myself have been a long time resident of Houston, Texas. The only survivors of my immediate blood relatives, my younger brother Robert, stayed closer to home and is a long time resident of the Atlanta, Georgia area.

I suppose the appeal of today’s song is that we all can identify with fond feelings and memories of the folks down home. My dad used to joke with guests at our dinner table, “If you aren’t at home, you ought to be.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vv4ncU3si6oI5gcIrzMlpIH2md5YeA8y/view?usp=drivesdk

Down Home