Traveling south he and his wife
stopped in the once small city

where it all started. At the motel
he was told  that the city had

gone through unbelievable growth.
He took his wife on a trip into his

past, just a kid out of seminary,
taking a position as a campus

minister at the local university,
his late wife and his year-and-

a-half-old baby boy, a new state,
a different culture. The road in

from the Interstate was, indeed,
filled with many, many chain

restaurants but it was remarkable
how the town square had not

changed in fifty years except every-
thing was more spiffy, some of the

same shops (the movie theater
where he saw Dirty Harry, the pool

hall where he drank beer and shot
pool) and, of course, the same

churches where he had preached —
Episcopal, Presbyterian, Christian

(Disciples of Christ). And the university
where he plied his newly crafted trade

as a wet behind the ears preacher
speaking out against the war in

Viet Nam and for civil rights and
and the art department where he

would pick up his late wife from
her classes from which she would

graduate with honors after putting
together all the credits she had

from all the other colleges she
had attended and was so reluctant

to compile afraid of the grades
that weren’t so sterling. Back

at the motel he got really weepy
not so much in sadness as in lost

and found. It was over fifty years
ago and he was sure no one recalled

that he had been there then, but he
had been there and as his insightful

wife said, “It is where you got your
start and you will never lose that.”