A Cup of Conversation – December 2019/January 2020

Our kids and their families are all coming home for Christmas. Mary cannot stop smiling. The newlyweds are wheels down on Christmas Eve. If asked, our beautiful girl would say there is no place on earth she’d rather be for the holidays. Even our Bay Area, Forty-Niner football loving son-in-law has seen the light. They bought a home in Arizona recently…I think his words were, “Enough is enough.” However, he kept the season tickets. Smart boy!

The oldest is gracing our doors early and staying a couple of weeks. He will be retiring from the Navy in a few short years and coming back home after seeing what the entire world has to offer. They asked their fifteen-year-old where he’d prefer spending Christmas this year, Hawaii or Oregon? The beach kid didn’t hesitate. “Who wants to go to another beach when you can go duck hunting?” I guess the old man made an impression.

Anyone having raised kids here will tell similar stories. I recall a friend living only a few miles away in Medford saying Jacksonville was not just a small town but rather a way of life. How appropriate. During the early days here, grinding away building a life in our beautiful little community, there were many times at night or early mornings I was alone in the storefront hitting my knees in thankfulness. It wasn’t easy finding our way but worth every second in time and sacrifice. Thirty years ago, we gave up a great deal, as the world values things, to break orbit to come here. Never once have I questioned our decision even during long periods of great fatigue and forced frugality.

Small town life is not for everyone. Some quarter-century ago I remember standing in the middle of California Street with hundreds of people watching the Christmas tree lighting ceremony on a very frosty night. A couple having just moved here from a big city and starting a business declared loud enough for people around to hear, “Next year we’ll show them what a real Christmas looks like.” Think about that for a second. They didn’t go the distance, by the way. Hard to call a place home when you’re looking to recreate that place in the image of what you still refer to as home, right?

Even though we grew up elsewhere, Jacksonville will always be home and certainly home sweet home to our kids. Our intent is to give their children the same heart for this wonderful place, a place on earth they can always call home no matter where they may find themselves long after we’re gone.

The other day someone asked me what my plans were for the future. My response was I’m living my future now, so how does one plan for that? I don’t know either. As long as our kids continue referring to visiting Mom and Dad for the holidays as coming home for Christmas, I really don’t care much.

Merry Christmas!