Landmarks

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments about my last post!  I read each and every one of them (thank you Droid!) while Mr. Tide and I were away helping our daughter who ended up taking a trip to the emergency room last Thursday in the wee hours of the morning.  Unfortunately for her, she has inherited some of my reproductive issues, and suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst...ouch!  She is feeling much better now, and thankfully she has a wonderful roommate who took very good care of her until we could get there the following day!

The house pictured above is what we call the Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear House.  For those of you who live in southern Maryland, it is a sort of landmark.  I'm not quite sure where it got its name, or who owns it, but I think most people who know of its existence have always called it by that name.  

I actually took the picture at the request of a friend of mine who has always loved this little unassuming house.  I think it resonates with her, and with me, because it is so simple, yet so charming.  When my kids were little they had a joke that I only liked run down houses.  It's true, I do love a fixer upper that has tales to tell and wears her years with pride.  I think you can just feel the love and happiness that once filled their rooms and even the yard when you look at them.  Can't you just hear those screen doors slamming as children darted in and out, chasing lightning bugs in the summer or going to fetch wood to feed the stove during the winter?

Anyway, it's a present for my friend, whose birthday is coming up.  She doesn't read my blog every day, so I think I am safe to post it.

I guess landmarks are what help us to find our way.  Long before GPS' showed up on everything from our car's dashboard to our smart phones, these were the coordinates that let us know where we were and how to make our way back home.  Mr. Tide still laughs when I give directions based on where things "used" to be.  You know, you turn right where the Ford Dealership used to be, next to Mr. So and So's house that was torn down years ago, the one with the big front porch, and then you go down the hill by where we used to buy our penny candy, and over the old railroad tracks that no longer exist?!  Seems simple enough...right?

A sense of place, I think that's why we use directions that link us to our past, and why we would want a picture of the Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear house...before they tear it down and put in a doggone Wawa or self storage place!