I feel like sharing. Here is something I’m working on for the Missouri Writing Project.

Odd Secrets Found When Going Home
Home is a composite of the friends and family we welcome within. The energy of these people who we care for and who care for us lingers. The time that we spend with these people creates feelings and memories that impress on our hearts and minds forever. Whether we have a mother or brother who is tough and can throw a look that would stop the most unaware adolescent or younger sibling in his tracks, or whether we have a Father or sister who bakes sugar cookies, home is where we learn who we are. The sum of our shared experiences creates a shared history.

I am from God-fearing, casserole-making, teetotalers. Well, at least that is the answer you would get if you asked anyone on my mother’s side of the family. On the other hand, it’s my father’s side of the family that really knows how to kick back and throw a good party.

I grew up in and around an old farmhouse in northern Illinois that was two hours west of the windy city and twenty minutes from the nearest town in the summertime (in the wintertime, a blizzard could keep us snowbound for a day or more).

Not only did our family and friends know our names, but so did everyone within a five mile radius. That’s just how it was. Everyone was an acquaintance of some sort. It was a friendly community. When drivers passed each other on the gravel roads, they would exchange smiles and cheery waves.

Since I already divulged that my Mother’s family is a bunch of teetotalers, I guess you’ll understand, then, when I tell you that when I was a kid, Mom hid Dad’s Pabst Blue Ribbon beer on the basement steps. A visitor who entered the house via the side porch would have to look over the gate and down the dark stairs below to see it. She also tried to disappear my favorite pair of yellow smiley face sneakers by putting them on the basement steps too. But, it didn’t work. I was a curious and observant child. I knew her secret and Daddy’s secret pleasure.

Back in those days, and especially in old farmhouses, people didn’t spend much time in basements because they weren’t finished like they are now. Back then basements were called cellars and mothers stored canned goods on the shelves down cellar such as pickles, peaches, tomatoes, and elderberry jam.

Even in close families, and even today, there are some things that are not discussed in the family. It is not as if we still consciously keep secrets like Dad’s PBR on the basement steps. We just don’t talk about it. Times change.

As we children get older and make homes of our own, we share less with our parents and siblings as we begin to make homes of our own. Part of this, surely, is just an outcome of not living together anymore. It is not that we care less. We just have other concerns.

Yet, we still hold all the memories of home even odd ones like these.