Time is closing-in... and this town isn't making it any easier on me

So... someone tried to steal my Land Rover out of my driveway Sunday night. Monday morning when I walked out of the house to drive my daughter to school – the hood was open, the silent alarm was activated and the transmission was locked-out. I was able to just pull a fuse and bypass the alarm with the original key so I could drive it around, yesterday. I was so grateful that it wasn't stolen that I didn't mess with getting it into the dealer for them to reset the computer, I just figured I had fixed it well enough to drive (I drove it all day yesterday without a problem) and I didn't want to waste a couple hundred dollars at the dealer.

This morning it would not start at all, and the horn alarm went off every time I tried to bypass it. So I yanked more fuses and unhooked the battery and then reconnected it, but still no luck. So I called the dealer and the service manager said, their was no way to bypass the alarm at this stage, because the Rover still believes it is being stolen, so I am now waiting on a $110 flatbed tow truck to come get it and take it to the dealer who can hopefully fix it by Friday… when I plan to move.

Time is closing-in, only a few days till the next big move. It’s been nearly a decade since I lived within proximity of extended family, so it is with mixed emotions that I return my children to the place of my birth. I want them to acquire the same loves I recall from my youth:

Open fields against the bastion of the Mark Twain National Forest. Dry-rub barbeque ribs from the Hickory Log restaurant. Saturday evenings eating deep fried catfish, frog-legs and cornbread, with a side of scratch flat dumplins. The slight accented language that is not too deep to drop, but still impossible to forget. The brief drive to neighboring Memphis in anticipation for an afternoon and evening of true blues music. Hot summer evenings in St. Louis cheering the Cardinals from a cheap nosebleed seat at the ballpark. Mostly, though I’ve come to miss that southern Midwest mentality that shares everything between neighbors without a thought of returned obligation.

I mentioned in a recent post that I felt:

There is a certain amount of solitary reward that emerges when one is left to ponder the merits of self-reliant resources in an environment not designed around the common acceptance of fine art.

I have now lived in both renowned art meccas as well as small hamlets that waste little time on the seemingly inconsequential. I found the art centers to be less inspiring; the business of art, in these places, to have little to do with the creative process. I look forward to returning to the small town environment, where living well does not always equal living wealthy. I cherish the opportunity the citizens grant me to make my art amongst their lives.

Mostly, though, I just look forward to the freedom of exploring the familiar places of my youth… so many years ago. - DN