Sitting here in Florida on a nice June day is a wonderful thing. Everytime I start to complain about having to be in Florida, ( when I want to be in WVA), I tell myself that people wait their entire life to retire in this awesome state. I tell myself that I just got to come down a little early. I miss so much about WVA. I miss my family, I miss my friends, and I miss the places I use to go.

While I was looking through some pictures on the computer I came across this one. I immediately thought about a place I use to go when I was a young lady.

I can almost hear the sound of a train whistle. That is a sound I have loved since I was a child. My house sat right beside a railroad track. I have so many wonderful memories of my homeplace, and so many of them are stirred in my mind here in Florida when I hear a train whistle. I sometimes close my eyes and can feel the breeze of those old trains. I use to stand close to the ditch so that the wind would blow on my face.

When I wanted to be alone I would cross the railroad track and head down over the riverbank. I would sit beneath the tall trees and dream. I had so many dreams when I was young. I wrote poetry, and stories, and songs, and dreamed that I would grow old right there at my homeplace. I could see myself sitting on my front porch in a rocking chair watching those trains roll by. Little did I ever dream that I would be so far from home. But life has a way of changing quickly. Mine did, and now my home is here in Florida, But my heart is beneath those tall trees, on the riverbank of my WVA homeplace, where I am listening to the sound of the train whistle, waiting to feel the breeze on my face. Is there someplace else you would like to be?