Monday, November 3, 2014

PNW--Wild West--Midwest and back

I've been on the road some. It was nice to leave the bubble and nice to return to it.
In the interim, I visited aunts and uncles and cousins and our matriarch, met a new baby and a new husband, drove nearly a thousand miles over the prairie, hung out with a 93 year old and a 5 year old, visited one of the oldest African American settlements in the Midwest, haggled for antiques within shouting distance of the mausoleum at the Garden of Eden, mourned with the locals when the Royals lost the World Series, drank Coors Light and Most Wanted bourbon and Lb's wheat ale and in general had a pretty good time.
The photos are from a road trip reflection in my uncle's seatback, a bathroom wall made of bottles, and a snapshot of a very important box.
While I was there a family heirloom came back to us, a wooden box that Dusty nailed together and sent back to his sweetheart while he was stationed in Italy during the Second World War. In it he enclosed a necklace from Rome, his Good Conduct medal, and the mushiest love letter this side of a Nicholas Sparks novel. The necklace came apart and is being restrung and we had to dampen the fragile letter to flatten it enough to slide it into an acid-free sleeve, but the trio of gifts is still with family and all together, which in these weird times is comforting and sweet.

No comments:

Post a Comment