An interesting journey

The highlight of any trip I make to Arkansas involves spending quality time with my boys and the week-long trip I just got back from was no different. I spent three days in Russellville with Michael while Will was on a sports weekend to Dallas. He and friends attended the Rangers-Blue Jays playoff baseball game on Friday, the Oklahoma-Texas college football game on Saturday, and the Dallas Cowboys-Cincinnati Bengals pro football game on Sunday. Friday night, Michael and I drove 13 miles to the town I grew up in to watch a home football game for the first time in decades.

I was a two-sport letterman when I was an Atkins Red Devil playing in Atkins, Arkansas and what a thrill that was for me. Atkins has always been a huge sports town and the residents support their high school teams as enthusiastically as anybody does and better than most. It was homecoming in Atkins so the stands were full as always so Michael and I chose to walk the fence, a time-honored tradition that goes all the way back to my high school days and probably beyond. The only disappointing thing about the game is that I only saw two people I went to school with and I was hoping to see many more. I'm sure many were at the game but they either didn't recognize me, I didn't recognize them or, just as likely, we didn't recognize each other. The years have a way of doing that to people. But despite the fact that I wasn't able to interact with many people, Atkins has a good football team this year like they usually do and it was enjoyable to watch those young men play on the same field that I played on fifty years ago and my dad twenty years before that. The Red Devils won and that was the icing on the cake.

On Sunday we went to the movies to see Sully, starring Tom Hanks. This is a movie based on a true story in which the captain of an airliner saved everyone on the plane after birds flew into both engines flaming them out by doing a belly landing on the Hudson River in New York City. The movie was about the events that led up to that crash landing and the investigation afterward that Michael and I enjoyed but Linda, not so much. But the buttered popcorn was good.

Will and I timed our drive to Fayetteville so we would get there at about the same time and we were successful, him arriving just ten minutes before I did. I took him and his wife Erica out for dinner that night and then we spent the rest of the evening catching up on each other's lives while we watched playoff baseball and the Monday Night football game on television. Since Will and Erica both work, I left the next morning to visit the places we've lived before.

I drove to Alva, Oklahoma first where I was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and found the college to be in fine shape. They've refurbished many of the buildings there and the campus looked bright, inviting and busy. Since I've been gone, they've built a McDonald's right across the street from the University so I'm sure that's one business that will be there forever because there aren't many things college students like more than fast food. I couldn't find the first house we lived in but found the other two. One was in a state of disrepair, the other one looked almost new. I took pictures of both on my cell phone for the family to see and then drove on to Dodge City where I was an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at St. Mary of the Plains College. The major classroom building is still standing because it's being used for other purposes since the college closed but the girl's dorm where Linda and I were head residents has been torn down. I found the house we lived in after Michael was born and it has stood the test of time well.

I suppose the most curious thing about this trip into yesteryear was the lack of emotions it generated in me. I was expecting to be touched by re-visiting places we had lived and worked as a family and remembering the good things that happened there but that didn't happen. In fact, I was anxious to leave both places. Maybe it's because I was alone and had no one to share those memories with or maybe it's the fact that I've always been able to compartmentalize my life into the here and now and not dwell on the good AND bad things that happened in the past. All I know is that I didn't miss living in either place and was happy to get back to McCook on Wednesday afternoon.

My feelings reminded me of an old saying that my grandfather used quite a lot.

Yesterday is a canceled check, tomorrow is a promissory note and today is the only cash in hand we have. It's the only day we can change or have an impact on for better or worse and we need to not ever forget that.