thoughts about roots...

I grew up in the peak era
of the great American
suburb.

A period of migration
and the total rebuilding
of a way of life.

John Howard Kunstler writes:

Deep down, many Americans are dissatisfied with suburbia-though we have trouble understanding what's missing-which explains their nostalgia for the earlier model of development known as Main Street USA...

When buildings fail to define public space at a scale congenial to humans-as along any commercial highway strip-people cannot be there in safety and comfort. They will not walk there. They will not pause and mingle there with other people. They will not communicate there. They will not contribute to a social organism that is larger then themselves.

One inhabits the commercial highway strip isolated within the walls of a motor vehicle, cut off from other people. Such places are therefore profoundly uncivil. They impoverish and diminish us socially, and the community pays an enormous price for this incivility in terms of social dysfunction, ruined institutions, and misbehavior...

In many ways
Suburbia
is a failure.
We rushed away for
safety,
quiet,
and beauty.

In return we lost
our hometown...
our stories...
our sense of
community.

Citizens
turned into
Consumers
and we
are paying the price.
(I'll let you fill in the
blanks as to the price
we have paid.)

I've been watching
the NBC show
"Who do you think your are?

With tears
I watched as
Sarah Jessica Parker
discovered her story,
her connection,
not only with her
family
but with her country.

Her story
is really
our story.
We've lost our connection.
Many of us don't know our roots,
where we come from,
who we are.

We long for roots...
roots deeper
than
Suburbia is
able to offer.

Thankfully I had some relatives
who wrote down stories of my family.

Yesterday I pulled out
the papers and read.
Scottish immigrants
came to America
fought in the American revolution,
the War of 1812
and the war which made
Texas an Independent nation.

Scottish immigrants
who opened Main Street
merchantiles and
preached in Baptist pulpits.

This is one side of my family -
a few of the roots
that tell my story.

I called my sister yesterday
who opened the
General Store of Monaville
a little over a year ago.

I said:
Did you know that you are
continuing our family story.
The very first McFarland
who arrived on
American soil drove a wagon
about selling needed items
one would usually
find in a General Store
of the day.

Merchants
and Ministers.
It seems
our family
tradition continues.