Home Is Where The Heart Is

The year was 1939 when Dorothy Gale first said, “There’s no place like home.” As she clicked her heels together three times, she repeated those words, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” And yet, about a year later, the author Thomas Wolfe proclaimed, “You can’t go home again.” Wow, talk about being conflicted.

Though I cannot recall a time when my childhood home was as idyllic a place as Dorothy’s, I can nonetheless empathize with her wanting to return to all that was familiar and safe. For me, as a child growing up in a dark and ugly place, living with the monster I knew always won out over venturing out into the unknown. That said, at the tender age of eighteen I did indeed venture out into the unknown. Judy and I became husband and wife - soon to become father and mother.

Unfortunately I can also attest to the words of Thomas Wolfe. My parents separated when I was 26 years old and shortly thereafter divorced. The home that I knew as a child was certainly no more. Upon their separation, dad said, “You are either for me or you are against me,” and that was the last time we spoke. Years later, mom said, “I don’t want you coming around here anymore”. Without question, it was true. I could not go home again – at least not to either of their new homes.

Thankfully, despite these less than ideal “formative years,” I do have fond memories of home. Just not the home I grew up in as a child. For starters, there was that 10x50 single wide trailer in which two children of the sixties made their first home. I often reflect upon stepping in the doorway with groceries in hand just as Judy’s water broke. So much for BLT’s. A panicked phone call and out the door we went to have a baby. And then there was the time, a little over a year later, when Judy and I developed black and white Christmas cards of our son in the kitchen sink. Point of clarification, in case you were confused, our son was in his bed, not the kitchen sink.

Another home was the house of a fellow Montgomery Ward service tech. I was about the same age as his oldest child and in many ways he was like a dad to me when my own wasn’t. I will always remember eating homemade pizza and playing board games in their kitchen until the wee hours. He’s gone now but I think of him often. Each time that I do, a lump comes to my throat and my eyes start to water. They don't make them Like that anymore.

And speaking of the wee hours, I will likewise always cherish the hours-long talks with a former Hobart Corp coworker – now just a very special friend. A nearing ninety black woman who has taught me so much about life and perhaps even more about myself. Left behind in Ohio – our phone call visits are not the same, but special, nonetheless.

So, who was right – Dorothy Gale or Thomas Wolfe – or does it really matter? At this stage of my life, I find myself spending less and less time dwelling on the past and more and more time focusing on the here and the now. And the homes that matter the most is the double wide Judy and I live in now and the home where our son and his family lives – just fifteen minutes away. As the adage goes, home is where the heart is, and right now my heart is in a pretty good place – at least most of the time.