Americana: Coming Home to Our Roots

Ahh, the good old days. Many of you remember we're sure of a time when your parents told you to just come home when it got dark. You'd be out riding bikes, going to the park, getting into childhood mischief, playing baseball or football in the street. We'd drink from the water hose, our clothes would be stained, we'd have cuts and bruises, the origin of which we couldn't remember. Experiences may have varied, but we can remember a time when we'd leave the house on a Saturday morning or day off from school and go play with our friends with our only command being "Come home when it gets dark!". Every single one of those scenes from our childhood could be the feature of a Normal Rockwell painting.

We don't see it much these days. Maybe it's because we as adults are focused on work and we sleep in on Saturday mornings trying to chase the ever elusive 8-hours of sleep and we miss the pilgrimage of children on bikes heading out to who knows where to do who knows what. We certainly do miss those days. What we would give to go back to being eight or nine years old, telling our parents, we're going to Tommy's house and then maybe the park or something else to have the response be "Ok, come home when it gets dark."Those days were invaluable in preparing us for adulthood. Those days taught us lessons that we may not have realized back then. They taught us that life wasn't about money or cars or big houses. Those things are great, don't get us wrong (a matte black Z06 Corvette would look mighty nice in our driveway), but those days taught us the value of friendship and people. They taught us to disconnect from the world for a while and enjoy the things that really matter, the people we call friends.

As the weather warms up, maybe you can take a trip down nostalgia lane and get together with some friends, drop the phones and come home when it gets dark...or even a little later.