Forty-one years ago, for all intents and purposes, I left my parents house and went out on my own. Just like everyone does.

College, marriage, employment, children, transfers, divorce, along with many more occurrences and incidents of fun and folly ensued.

All leading me farther, and farther away from both the physical, and emotional home of my youth.

The physical home was sold and my parents embarked on their own travels as they were finally childless and retired. They traveled the United States, much as I am doing now.

My emotional concept of home never disappeared, though I never really established an adequate physical replacement. Through marriages, home purchases, home sales, and changes of venue HOME remained elusive.

That prize barely grazing the fingers of my outstretched hands. Making the prize all that much more desired.

I  am making a trip back to the area of my birth….sounds so much more prosaic that way, doesn’t it? So much more than I am going to visit friends and family for the holiday. I can’t say HOME because the building that embodied HOME is now owned by someone else. I hope that they are living in it as my family did. We laughed, we cried, we argued and fought.

At the end of the 1000 mile journey I am making I hope to find the laughter without the fighting and gnashing of teeth. Just bourbon, cigars, music, and folderal.

As my fingers once again brush against the prize.