APPLES, PEACHES, PUMPKIN PIE....

Now that summer is here, my thoughts have turned back to my childhood days growing up in Medford. It wasn't perfect, but it was, as far as I'm concerned, as close to it as possible. Almost every day was some kind of adventure.  We spent hours swimming at the "Minnie Hole," a wide area of water where a branch of Haines Creek ran through. We'd start in the early afternoon and eventually go home for dinner and then back swimming again.

The evenings until way after dark were spent playing hide-and-seek, and a few games we made up as we went along, which I'm not sure had any specific rules except when somebody objected to losing (which is kind of the way people still are). Along with swimming and hide-and-seek, we had a local movie theater, with Saturday matinees and lots candy and popcorn.

Then there were family trips to the beach on LBI. The arcades at Clementon Lake Park and Seaside (when I had enough pennies, nickles, and dimes),the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, and crabbing in Tuckerton.

My summer jobs were picking blueberries, packing corn, mowing lawns, drying tomato seeds at Stokes Cannery in Vincentown. There's a lot more that I could share, but I better stop here before you quit reading. 

Anyway, there's an old saying that goes "you can't go home again." And to a large part, that's true. On the other hand, you can always go back home in your memories--the advantage being that you can choose to relive the really good times and eliminate the ones that were embarrassing, painful, and nightmarish.
Of course, those also helped to make us what we are in these days.But our treasured memories are still very much alive. 

Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield performed some experiments on patients (with their permission) during surgery in which he would probe the brain to stimulate various responses. In one of those, he probed a certain area in an attempt to activate a memory. He asked the patient where he was and he said that he was at a ballgame. The patient could smell the smells, hear the noise of the crowd, and experience various other senses of actually being there. 

I don't think we should have our brains probe in surgery, but maybe it is an indication of all those great things we remember are still accessible to us in some way.

Bottom line, though, it isn't just for the purpose of a nostalgic journey. It is an
experience of life being filled with the grace to allow us to appreciate the good things that are still alive in our life stories and for a cleansing of the soul that in anyway is filled with guilt or fear or hostility. Divine love has brought us to where we are and Divine Grace has given us permission to be free.