A Journey Home (continued)

     As a child, I too spent hours churning butter or welcomed others as the neighbors came to help harvest.  Water was heated on a coal stove, the clothes were hand me downs, toys were homemade and the outhouse was never pleasant.   I remember the claw foot tubs of my youth, placed in the ground as the animals drinking vessel.  How I long for one today placed in my bathroom.

     Life is not easy in this devout community with the world infringing on the edges of its youth. For me, the push mower, the homemade swing, roaming the country roads as a child, barefoot and unharmed, is a memory...for them a reality they hope to hold onto in the future.  They live in the midst of progress and all its temptations, still devoid of cars, electricity, and telephones.  They live by rules. Thursday is for laundry, wooden clothespins securing the items billowing in the breeze. It creates a nostalgic sound as it flaps in the wind, visually tempting me in its orderly array.   There is still only a Saturday bath from the hand pump. Sundays are sacred and for rest; they are for community.