OPINION? EVERYBODY HAS ONE: I don't like change but can't go back

— This might have been mentioned a time or two in previous months by none other than myself, but I do not like, appreciate or take kindly to change. I want everything to stay like it is, just the way I left it or last saw it and do not need anyone to attempt to make it better.

Better is only in the eyes of the beholder; and if I ain’t the beholder, better is not better! Does that all make sense? Sure, it does, because a great many of you fellers out there know exactly what I mean. You feel my pain!

I drove out to the family ranch one day a few years back. I had to return to the area to attend a funeral for a relative, and so I hung around for an extra couple of days. I wanted to see the places where my sainted Mother and Pappy raisedme, where I made tracks the years of my youth, and, with bated breath, I drove to the ranch.

My disappointment was palatable. I had troublebreathing as I searched the landscape for signs of the barn and the lots where we worked cattle, I rode snotty horses and Pappy spent so many hours. The old cellar was still there, caved in and the door gone, but it at least held its ground. I remembered the many trips made to collect fruit and vegetables from the shelves and the constant worry about a rattler curled up under the steps.

I could trace the foundation of the house, my home that was so sweet, the home that I never did appreciate until I was long gone and making a home of our own. I had lumps big as watermelons in my throat, and the dust must have made my eyes water as I looked around and tried to hear an echo of the past.

The mesa and its caprock still stood, didn’t look much different. And the canyon behind the place was a little deeper, but I could remember the terrain like I had just runover it looking for arrowheads. I returned to the barn area and picked up a hand-made nail, square and long. The nails Pappy used to put the barn up and hold it together in the strong winds he expected. The nail was all I could find.

The windmill was gone, as gone as the house, and I know the water under that dirt would have still been cold and sweet. I had really wanted a drink of that just one more time, but I was not allowed. Why it was all gone, I don’t rightly know. I know I had to change because time is just that way, a young man grows into adulthood and then into his older years and then into the elder years. I still don’t like change.

It is my opinion, and everyone has one, the old saying about never being able to go back home may be correct for some folks, but I came away with vivid memories, a stillunquenched thirst and an unrequited need to see the place again. I smelled the same air, felt the same sun on my face and am glad I went. But, I still don’t like change.

Bill is a pen name used by the Gravette author of this weekly column.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 06/06/2012