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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

While it might be fair to say that I'd have litte to comment on, always 
annoying my current wife by always introducing her as my first wife and and 
answering the inquiry as to how I talked her into living way out here by 
explaining 
that it was her idea,  none the less, but sometimes there's a perspective 
from 
not having stepped into it that is just enough different.

To other people who have been though some of what Roxanne is talking about 
I'd ask this:  If you had chucked it all and moved back to the city, how do 
you 
suppose things would have worked out??  Do you think family tensions would 
have subsided and things would have come closer to "Leave it to Beaver" type 
household?

What I am saying is this.  Giving up the homestead dream for the suburban 
dream most often, I'd guess, is giving up one thing to be unhappy over for 
something else to be unhappy over.

I'm reminded of when the Isrselites got fed up with the exodus:

"And the mixt multitude that was among fell a lusting; and the children of 
Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and 
the melons, and the leeks, and hte onions , and hte garlick;
But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all, beside this manna, 
before our eyes."

If one's family had a well defined dream they wanted to pursue and that dream 
was being thwarted by sojourning in the rural Ozarks, then it's a fair 
question to be considered.  However, I've never seen that nor heard of it.  
It's 
always more a longing along the lines of remembering that there were onions 
in 
Egypt, but forgetting the slavery and abuse.

Even under the best of conditions the return to the urban life rarely works 
out like the homesteader refugee imagines.  Yes indeed!  If I was only in X 
urban center, why, with my wit and charm and skills, I'd be such a success.  
The 
only reason I'm unhappy is because I'm stuck here on this rural farm!

But story after story I can tell you, the family, or half the family, or one 
spouse goes back to the city only to find they were not dealing with the real 
problem and they are still just as miserable.

If that ever happened to me, I'd ask first and foremost, "You know what my 
dream is, what's yours?  You know my plan, let's see your plan."    If the 
only 
dream and the only plan is just to not be there on the farm, then all 
problems 
will miraculously disappear, the prospects are grim.

Now what I have said applies to the best of times.  These are NOT the best of 
times.  I'm not one who puts a lot of stock in the outlook that, "Well, ya 
never know how things will turn out ..."   Wrong, one often has a very good 
idea 
how things will turn out if the eyes are kept open and the ear is to the 
ground.  Economies collapse, it has happened throughout history.  All the 
signs 
point ot a majorly recessive economy for a number of years, if not an out and 
out collapse and restart from the soot and ashes of the old.

That longing for the "Peasant Valley Sunday Morning" suburban life is longing 
for an existence that very well no longer exists.  Someone was visiting 
yesterday and we compared notes, "Do you know any family that has not been 
affected 
in some way by the current downturn and rise in unemployment?"  We 
collecitvely knew no one.

What I am saying in short is this:  Before viewing such a situation as whose 
dream is the more important, make sure that there's actually a counter-dream 
on the table being bet against your own.  I've found that when the only thing 
being offered against someone's dream is "I just want out of here", that's 
the 
only consistent thing you are going to be able to rely upon.  They will 
always 
just want to be out of there, no matter where it is.


James