One of the worst things a misplaced Southerner can do is go eat at Cracker Barrel.  I just got back from there and am feeling melancholy and homesick.   Of course this may not be psychological, but physiological as my belly is full of fried chicken livers and white gravy.  While not as good as mom's cooking, it comes but pretty close.  The atmosphere in the Cracker Barrel acts as a time machine which takes me back to my home state Kentucky and all the country stores I used to go to.  It's not only the country store looks but also the sounds, the sounds (twangy country music), the smells- it smells just like Arbuckle’s store, the country store I used to go to every day before and AFTER school.  It even carries some of the same products Arbuckle used to have, things like Double-Bubble and Orange Crush and Bit-O-Honey- good stuff!  All the antiques on the walls remind me of the barns and shops I visited or worked around as a kid.  My wife and I find ourselves looking at the photographs on the walls to see if some relative might be "watching over us".  The atmosphere creates a sensation in my soul that is very hard to describe.  It's like a time portal for the soul working in some mystical way that transports me to other places and times.  It takes me to the folks back home-my mom and dad, grandparents, my sisters, nieces and nephews.  It gives me the same physical sensation I felt in the old place where my grandparents lived-warm, but drafty.  My youngest sister’s farm where we shot down mistletoe and a few rabbits and quail here and there- events which were made all the more fun by my brother-in law's "country philosophies".  My oldest sister's farm where I cut tobacco and hauled hay and was spoiled by her as my second mom..  My middle sister's house where I spent a lot of my "turbulent teen" years crying on her shoulder.   The woods out behind our house where I spent many hours playing the lone frontiersman.  I think a lot about my school chums-we could be the best of friends and the worst of enemies.  And the churches, O the country churches! Potbellied stove right in the middle of the thing, fueled by Western Kentucky Gold- Number Nine Coal.  I have a scar on my forearm where I got a little too close to one of those things.  Revival meetings lasting deep into the humid nights.  Open windows in the summer which didn't stifle the heat much. 

 It's riveting that a large chain restaurant can take me back to Sunday afternoons at my grandmother’s house and eating  food in which lard was a main ingredient.  Long, lazy fall days spent quail and rabbit hunting with my grandfather-who sometimes fell asleep under trees while I diligently waited for a squirrel to appear.  Walking endless and endless miles with my dad receiving life lessons I still use today.  One of my favorite memories is sitting on my mom’s kitchen counter and talking with her.  The first time I kissed a girl when I was in the fourth grade.  It's funny how the antique farm implements and tools hanging on the walls in that place clear the cobwebs from my memory.  I see vividly the coal mining operations- open pits-draglines, bulldozers, steam shovels- along with the rugged and colorful men and women who operated them.  I remember my Dad’s dusty smell when he came home from working in those mines.  I equally remember tasting the same dust when I worked at them.

It seems times were simpler then.  We never locked a door on anything at any time.  I could go on about fresh mown hay, playing hide and seek in a cornfield with stalks 12 feet high, O yes and gigging frogs- but I guess it's time to make some kind of point in all this rumination.  I'm snapped from my remembrance by the fact that I'm 1800 miles from Kentucky and about 30 years away from most of those memories I've mentioned.   The truth is that those days are gone and the sad fact is I didn't really appreciate them when I was living them-they were just "ordinary" days.  I have come to realize now that there is no such thing as an ordinary day-each day is a special gift from God and it should be treasured as such.  I try (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to treasure the time I have with the people I care about as that day will be added to my eternal memory banks-I'd like it to be a pleasant one. 

Moses, the man of God prayed, "So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You (God) a heart of wisdom."        Psalm 90.12

I hope my heart is growing wiser with each passing day.  How about you?  What conjures up your memories and fills you with nostalgia and longing?  How do you treasure the days?  Are you making cherished memories?