"There's No Place Like This Home"

We recently had our son and his family spend a week with us. My son is in his last year of law school in Nebraska and had come for some potential job interviews. It was a great week to have him, his wife, and three kids with us. We don't see them that often. So when the week ended, it was hard to watch them drive away.

Since it is a long drive home we naturally worried about them. We called every so often to check on their progress. After they got home, I asked my son if his kids were glad to be home. He said as soon as they arrived, the two oldest jumped out of the car and ran to the front door of the apartment complex. Once inside, he said he found his 4 year old son excitedly hugging his bedroom wall. Now, if that isn't happy to be home, what is?

Isn't that the way it is? Like Dorothy declared in the Wizard of Oz: "there's no place like home." And so there isn't. I suppose that most of us are like that. We have a place we call home and prefer to be there. It is the place we are most comfortable; the place where our best memories have a life of their own. There is no place we'd rather be for the holidays.

In some ways that's how I feel about my country. I'm comfortable with its beginnings and history. I love its institutions and ideals. All are created equal and have access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It just feels like home. In fact there's no place like this home.

Sadly, like so many homes of the past, this home is being sold for a price. New owners are threatening to move the furniture, change the carpet, and paint the walls. It won't be long and it won't feel like home anymore. From the Whitehouse to Wall Street to Main Street, the storm clouds on the horizon portend an Ozian twister that will sweep us to a place that cannot really exist in a constitutional world. I hope that there will be masses of basicguys like me longing for Kansas because "there's no place like this home."