Tag: Grandpa

The Trail

Jennifred Jones

Each of our lives comes from a trail and leaves a trail.

Great Grandpa from northern Illinois was a wagon master on the Oregon Trail back in the 1800’s. My relatives along with others made the trip to Oregon City, Oregon. Some stayed, some came back, and some went back again.

We all have/need/want a known past; a place of belonging; to know where we ‘fit’ into the history of things. Did me or my family make a difference? What happened? What were the struggles and triumphs? What did they learn? What can I learn from my past? What do I have to pass on to my future families?

We want to belong to a tribe/clan/group. We want our ‘identifiers’ – this is my heritage -where I belong!

Some of us don’t know our past or had a bad past we don’t want to pass on. There is still a good future ahead for you. We can, beginning today, start a new trail to leave behind. In essence, we can create a new and better ‘past’ for ourselves and our families yet to come. Our past is not limited to what we don’t know or didn’t like. We have the opportunity to begin again, make better decisions, think up new ideas of what we’d like to see – and start now! We don’t have to wait to begin making a new trail to leave behind. We can clear the way so others can follow learning from what we went through.

So pick you a good past… something you might like to have lived, by picking and living a good present and future. You are the wagon master of your life.

Giddy up!

Let You Out!

Jennifred Jones

Once upon a time most of us were carefree little kids. Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandpa would let us out to play. We’d make cups and bowls out of river-bottom clay, build bridges with sticks and stones, clothes-pin baseball cards to our bike spokes and listen to the clatter. We’d mix our food together different ways and eat it. We’d sew dresses for our troll dolls…

We started to grow up and somebody told us our striped shirt didn’t look good with our plaid shorts. The frosting on our homemade cake was an ugly color. Our glasses looked dumb. Our feet were too long, our hair was too curly…self-conscious, self-conscious, self-consciousness began to set in.

It’s too painful fighting off the thoughtless comments from others… I’m not going to do anything different, not going to be made fun of again…gonna blend in so no one sees me AT ALL!

Years pass, nothing changes, it’s day in-day, day-out…same ole, same ole. “Oh how I wish I could be more than a cog-in-the-wheel.”

That is the voice of our true calling…asking us:

Who are you? Where are you going? What do you really want to do? Are you tired of the rat -race?

Get back to the childhood freedom of mind. Begin to think, play, design, dream, plan, imagine, tinker.

It’s time to let ourselves out!

We do not need to ask permission…