A hunger for the "Old America"

With the recent soundtrack of "hope" and "change" in our country and the quest for a "New America," I must be among the minority who would prefer a restoration of the "Old America"- a time of drug store soda fountains, fishing in the old watering hole, barber shops, playing baseball in the street, riding your bike without a helmet, Boy Scouts, family picnics, and playing checkers with your next door neighbor. My heart longs for a simpler time of life, the one in which my parents and grandparents unknowingly enjoyed. But I know that will never be. My girls will never know what it is like to ride your bike to the local grocery store without fear of being abducted. They won't know the joys their daddy had as a child when he was gone for hours upon hours, just fishing by himself at the village pond. But they did get a sampling of life in the "good old days," when we visited the Ohio Historical Society's traveling exhibit of "Norman Rockwell's America" this past weekend.

We had the unique pleasure of walking through 15 life-like re-creations of some of Rockwell's most famous paintings from the Saturday Evening Post. In amongst the displays, the Society had people dressed up in period costumes to help enhance the exhibit's "realness," and add life to the ongoing story in which Rockwell is so famous for communicating through his art work.

At the end of the exhibit, we were lead to a room with framed replicas of all the covers Rockwell did for the Post. This was incredibly moving. I gazed at the pictures, while standing near my Dad, step-mom Linda, and my Grandma. I knew they were able to identify with the images they were seeing. Those images were taking them back to a place in time which was very familiar to them. My eyes filled with tears at a couple of the paintings. I wondered if they prompted emotion out of others as they did with me.

I'm curious if Norman Rockwell ever realized the contribution he was making to our culture with each painting he created. Did he know that his work would be used as evidence that our lives as Americans were once simplified and somewhat effortless? I am grateful for the opportunity to expose the girls to such a country as this once was....even if they find it difficult to find traces of unpretentious living in the Twenty-First Century.