A few thoughts: Sunday morning December 15, 2024.
I heard this song the other day while watching the series Hell On Wheels. It reminded me of the connection I feel for the past, and the depths of my family roots. Hell On Wheels tells the story of the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad following the Great Civil War. Our nation's growing pains called us West at the cost of many lives, and ways of life.
Not many years prior my ancestors labored on the Miami and Erie Canal. Before the Iron Horse there were wooden canal boats pulled by flesh and blood horses. They traveled by water course not by rail. 60 to 70 feet wide, and six feet deep, many immigrants traversed, and like that mighty railroad to come, I can only imagine the sweat, blood and tears it took to clear a wilderness for the cause of progress and Manifest Destiny.
Today, some may call it a myth of the Western world, but I see a past we must not forget or fail to yield to the causes that blur our present ills.
Annabel, a great Aunt on my Mother's side I hardly knew. I remember her face like my Grandma Beatrice. From out of the depths of the past they renew my quest to know where I come from, and perhaps where I am going to. Inevitably, to that sky above for sure, but what legacy will I pass on to those following in the wagon wheel trail that was my life?
God Bless!
