Last Friday I spent the night with our college kids at their house on Sherwood Street in Stillwater.  It was not my first time to spend the night on Sherwood although it was been over fifty years since my last stay.  In the early sixties, my grandma Bill moved from the farm into town on Sherwood after my granddad passed away.  Everyone told her that she needed to be off the farm and around people.  She only made it a couple of years before the people proved too close and the solitude of the farm too far. 

Now our three oldest kids are a couple of blocks away from Bill’s former house. 

As I lay in bed, I began remembering nights on Sherwood Street.  I remembered, as a four or five year old, standing in the middle of the street in the dark of the night, with the kids from the neighborhood.  Susan and Mary and others pointed out the man in the moon, which I actually saw and was convinced.  This early sighting caused the excitement over Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969 to be fairly redundant. I also remembered my many plans and dreams;  dreams fulfilled and those handed over to those with more passion and better qualifications.  I didn’t become president but I did manage to make one hundred dollars.

More than any of those things, my mind went to the unimaginable dreams that I have lived and experienced. The family I have been blessed with, the friends who have touched my life, the places I have seen…and, of course, the hundred dollars.

Paying Attention,

Rick