Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

     If we ever were glad to see a break in the weather this past weeks rain provided just enough respite to bring on a delightfully pleasant stretch of weather that hopefully will last all the way through the Fair.

     The garden, which hasn’t really wanted to grow much of anything now has started to bring forth tomatoes and cucumbers and the rain drowned out the grasshoppers that were starting to feed on the tender green leaves of the plants.

     Outside my living room window, the hummingbird feeder has seen brisk activity as the green and gray hummingbirds zip back and forth grabbing a little food and then flying off to hover in the safety of the branches of the sugar maple trees.

     The corn has started to turn from the brilliant green of those first few weeks of tasseling to the darker green as the leaves of the plants stop grabbing energy from the ground in order to fill the golden kernels that are hidden away in their cloaks of shucks.

     As the sun fades over the fields to the west the cicadas start their constant nightly chatter which sounds like a faded alarm clock buzzing over and over again. Soon enough, the pears will be ready to pick and the bean fields will start to turn and the kids will be headed back to school.

     In this area school is starting to early this year in the opinion of most everyone except those running the show and my own kids will start back to school next week as well. It’s an exciting time as time is spent finding the right notebook, new back packs and finally realizing just how much that we’ve enjoyed spending the summer in flip flops that now have to be stuffed back into shoes.

      For a few of my friends it is a time when they send off their oldest to college and the exciting adventure of the big world outside of our control. For those students it is a time of setting out to make ones mark on the world and is the true test of how well we as parents have done in raising our kids. Be it close or far away, the message to send to those kids is to dream big, take risks, be smart and remember that home is never farther than a phone call away.

     For others it is the end of an era as their “babies” head off to pre-school and kindergarten for the first time and the first “empty nest” syndrome strikes. For those parents congratulations for a job well done getting them to this point. The time will go fast and your time will be filled with sports and concerts as well as frustrating homework that you really don’t have a clue how to help with. But it’s a joyful time as well as we send forth the youngest ones, full of hope and excitement and pray that they are kind to each other.

     Certainly the first day of the school year brings mixed emotions to many of us every year. Always a little bit of anxiety and a whole heaping bunch of hopes of success. We should remember these days as they will fly by fast and some day will only be a picture in a scrap book of silly looking kids in new shoes standing in front of a school bus at the end of the driveway. And as we look back upon the memories of this time we will remember the way we felt and with each new generation we pass along that feeling: from parent to child and on down the line.

     So as your kids head out to the bus that first morning and turn to give you a wave, be sure to hold back the tears and wave back at them, and if by chance they stop and run back for one last hug before the hop on, smile knowing that they’ll be home at the end of the day and will no matter how tired they might be, they’ll be happy to see you again.

See you next week…Remember, we’re all in this together.