How’s the saying go? You can never go home? Well maybe that’s true but you can go back where you came from. You can also just go where everyone knows you and where you came from. This also means they know some of antics that you may have pulled back in the day, allegedly. So this travel report was a gathering of people I know and who know me. It was the visitation of a man from my small home town. His name was Marvin. This is not his obituary so it’s not a story about who he was but rather who he was to me.

So first of all, it was Marvin and Sara. A last name isn’t needed, everyone knows who they are. Their kids are older then I am, so while Marvin and Sara may not have had a kid of their own to watch or support they seemed to always just be at things that went on. They were the youth group leaders at church for years. Sara told me she held me as a baby at a weiner roast when we first moved to town. She and Marvin played the farming game at youth group with us in high school. So decades not just years.

It wasn’t just church though. It was junior high and high school sports. It was 4-H and the county fair. Christmas programs, school carnivals, fall festival and town parades. It wasn’t just the good times though. Tough times come along in life and sometimes tough times are the worst of times. I can’t think of a funeral or visitation that they weren’t present at. Maybe that’s the most important thing of all. It was something you could count on. They were always there. Solid and steady. Marvin and Sara and lots of people that were always present in each others lives are who made up our town. So walking in last night I knew I would see a number of people I know and since Marvin was a story teller here are some of my stories about them.

Marvin and Sara’s daughter Tara once was wrapped in Christmas tinsel and had ornaments hanging from her ears in our basement at a youth group event. I think there still may be photographic proof . Their son Martin gave a fencing demonstration to us kids when he was home from college. I wanted to try out that sword so bad! Marvin wouldn’t let me get close to it. He knew I would get in trouble with it. He was right.

My first grade teacher told my wife to smack me of I got too far out of line with my shenanigans. She took me to the principals office when I put a mouse in her chair. She also still has the ceramic mouse I gave her for Christmas in first grade. So I really think she just talks tough.

I saw Patty whose husband took us on an4-H bird watching trip really early in the morning. I was really tired. But when we were done Patty had made these chocolate chip cookie bars. They were warm and so good. I don’t remember if we saw any birds or not. But I remember those cookies. I gave up on bird watching. I still love cookies.

I saw Jim who was 5 or 6 years older then me. He punched me in the arm as a kid. A lot. I thought about giving him one back when I saw him. But I’m a county commissioner these days and can’t be doing things like that. Ok, he actually spotted me coming before I could hit him. His folks John and Carolyn took me to Colorado for 10 days on their family vacation when I was a teenager. Who willingly takes an extra teenager on a family vacation? But they apparently thought nothing of it.

I saw Ramona who told me she enjoys reading my blog posts, and apparently she doesn’t hold a grudge from when I tried to drown her grandson when giving him swimming lessons. When Brenna and I first started dating, we went away with a group of her friends for a weekend. Ramona’s grandson, Kyle, had written in the group chat – “hey, why is the swim teacher going on this trip? He tried to drown me .” I responded with, “I have no problem finishing the job this time.” It’s like nobody even got the joke.

There are some people who have moved away or perhaps we missed in passing. Brenda, who not only made us fancy T-ball uniforms for our team, but I then repaid her by swearing at her using every curse word in the book as I came out of anesthesia after surgery in high school. I should probably go ahead and apologize for that one again. Sorry Brenda.

So maybe you can’t really go home again. But maybe home really isn’t a town or a place. Maybe it’s the relationships you build and the people you build them with. So last night walking in to the funeral home was a somber and sad time. But it was also comforting that I knew the people I would see there. And while I would never call a funeral home “home,” it kind of felt like it. Marvin was a storyteller or maybe he knew how important stories are. So make sure you tell yours .