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Echoes of the Past: Why Certain Eras Feel Like Home

/in /by

Have you ever felt drawn to an era you never lived through, as if your ancestors’ stories were woven into your very being? As a child, I’d close my eyes and picture myself on a lush green mountain trail, a pioneer forging a path through America’s wild frontier. The past felt closer than the present, as if I belonged to another time.

My childhood was steeped in the American Revolution and frontier days. I’d imagine slipping through forest shadows as an ancestor, spying on British troops or dodging danger along rugged paths. I could almost feel the weight of a musket in my hands, hear the creak of a wooden floor in a grand stone manor, where I’d don tailored clothes and wield a sword with finesse. These weren’t just games—they felt like memories, as if my forebears’ journeys lingered in my blood.

Some of Randall’s early 1900s kin at a front porch toffee pull.

As I grew, the WWI era and 1920s captured my heart, shaped by my grandparents’ stories. They spoke of muddy battlefields, hospital wards overflowing during the Spanish flu, and the quiet sorrow of fresh graves. Yet there were glimmers of joy—tales of square dances under starlit skies and toffee pulls that warmed the 1920s’ brighter days. Those stories carried such weight that I felt I’d walked those dirt roads myself.

The Great Depression and WWII, my parents’ youth, felt less vivid. We kids reenacted battles from old war films, mimicking soldiers with exaggerated accents. But those times never sank deep—they were stories I played at, not ones I lived.

Then came the 1950s. The era of sleek muscle cars and colorful Formica tables felt like home. Flipping through my parents’ photo albums—snapshots of soda fountains and drive-in theaters—I felt a pang of belonging, as if I’d cruised in a red-and-white ‘57 Chevrolet or swayed at a sock hop. Their tales of post-war hope made the decade feel like a second home.

Why do these eras pull at me? It’s more than nostalgia. My grandparents’ voices, heavy with loss, and my parents’ stories of 1950s optimism wove the past into my present. Or perhaps it’s deeper—memories encoded in my DNA, faint echoes of my ancestors’ lives surfacing in dreams of frontier trails and neon-lit diners.

In today’s world of instant updates, I find comfort in the past’s slower rhythms. The frontier’s adventure, the 1920s’ resilience, the 1950s’ optimism—they remind me every era has its struggles and joys. Which eras call to you? Dig through old photos or listen to your elders’ stories—you might find a time that feels like home. Perhaps we’re all a little out of sync with time, carrying echoes of the past in our hearts.

Where do the years go?

/in /by

Throughout my life, even in childhood, I was fascinated by time travel.

I watched any movie or TV show associated with the topic. From H.G. Wells “The Time Machine” to the series The Time Tunnel, a short-lived series that I watched in reruns growing up. Even “Fantasy Island” or “Sliders” would occasionally have a show that crossed into history that impacted their story lines.

While these were all a pleasant diversion in my childhood, thinking of being able to augment time in the past or visit the future was always an adventure of hope in my mind.

Changing little things in our life that we did wrong. How would that impact our world today.

We avoided an accident, we bought a winning lottery ticket. We avoided a heartache in our love life.

Would our life be better. Who else would our tweaks impact. Could we go back and save a love one’s life?

So many times, have I imagined making such changes.

I recently had the opportunity to look into faces of people I have known through much of my life.

As I stood next to each, shook and how-deed making small talk, I thought back upon the early natures of our friendships. Where we were then and where we are now. How God had moved our lives in different directions. How we once saw each other with regularity now decades later, if once or twice a year comes to pass, it is unusual. While I often long for those days of old in my mind, we have all moved to different places in life. The years are filled with facial lines, life experiences that have built character, deepened our faith stories, changed our lives and made us different people. Do we still care for one another as we once did?

I would say somewhere within our soul, the once existing connections remain allowing us to find the moments of camaraderie and friendship again as we pass the time of day.

I think about how time has moved so swiftly. Lives have flown through decades, many called home, many others remain and grow where they have set roots.

Is looking back at our past good thing or a bad thing? Is dreaming of time travel to impact the past a good fantasy? Should we be looking back or staring into the future?

I think when you stand in a particular place in life, whether your spend your time looking forward or looking back depends upon your own life. If you have created a wonderful life, raised a family and they are successfully traversing the world, you do tend to focus forward with one’s gaze.

If you are a creator, then you also tend to have a forward outlook seeking that next opportunity to make something new. You keep trying, hoping some invention or idea with bless the future and the world.

If the circumstances have placed you elsewhere in life and you find the future to be less interesting, you spend time looking back.

You cherish the people and the times now behind you. You relish the good times and those who were part of your life. Does looking back uplift you? Do you feel more able to face the day and walk through all that is coming at you?

If the answer is yes, then, whether you look backwards or forwards the exercise is productive for you and thus all you touch as long as you do not forget to live today, in the moment that God is giving you.

You have life in your hands. Every moment, everyday, you can make a difference. Even in the greatest disadvantages, you can impact people for the greater good of us all.

Looking in the past, hoping for the future, dreaming of a day that we know our efforts impacted the world and all those around us for good. That’s my hope for you and for me. As we travel through time, let’s enjoy the ride, we only get one turn on the ride.

Future or past, which has more?

/in /by

My brother asked me, ‘Are you living in the past?’ I often do find myself lingering within my memories. As time passes, I think it is easy to place more emphasis on what has gone by in your life than what is ahead.
That is probably especially so for someone who spends a great deal of time writing. You depend on your memories of experiences, people, places to bring your writing to life, add color, excitement and depth.
You think about the summer days running through a spraying sprinkler with friends with slippery green grass beneath you bare feet. A call from the porch brings us running and dripping as my folks cut up an ice cold watermelon on the back porch handing a piece to each of the kids. As we smiled while chewing it to the deep green rind the red juice ran down our faces and hands leaving us so sticky but oh so satisfied.
Standing outside the closed green apartment door, I wait for my first date or someone to answer it. I’m afraid that I might do something that would embarrass her or myself in some way as the evening progressed. And finally when the evening was a success, after finding that I didn’t make a fool of myself. I realized there was some hope she might actually like me.
Looking out from behind the deep burgundy curtains to see one of the first audiences for which I would perform at my elementary school, feeling my heart beat faster and faster; hearing the parents and students talk among themselves as the curtain came close to the opening.
The smell of diesel fills the air. I’m standing outside the tour bus anxiously waiting to catch a glimpse or maybe even shake the hand of an icon. He’s about to enter the Cathedral Caverns to record an album. I had not yet met the man who would play such a huge role in my life. His name was Bill Monroe.
Looking across a wooded area where we were filming a TV show, I was waiting to see the arrival of television icon Carroll O’Connor. I could have never imagined the impact the steps he took into my life that day could change the rest of my life.
Holding the hands of my father and mother as they stepped through to the other side, I remember them leaving their shared memories, deepest cares, greatest concerns, highest hopes and wonderful dreams with me.
A few years back, I wrote a book series called Encouragers that has kept me embedded in the past for about three years. It provided me with some wonderful times folding myself into the past. It can be a great inspiration to look back and it can also bring great sorrow if one dwells too much on what is gone rather than what is to be.
With the conclusion of the writing stage of of my three-book Encouragers series: Finding the Light; Walking with the Masters; A Guiding Hand; I was hopeful and excited to look towards the future to create new opportunities, new adventures and new memories to write about.
Each day that dawns gives us the chance to write another chapter in our life or the life of another we may not even have met yet. Will you use this day to create a great adventure and make a difference? I am going to do my best to achieve that same goal, I hope you do too!

Looking back to the future

/in /by

Life is something that we should cherish with every passing breath. Often times we do not appreciate the simplest things like the feel of cool breeze on a hot summer day; the taste of a fresh glass of homemade lemonade so cold that the outside of the glass drips; the deep red color of a vine-ripened tomato as its thinly sliced for a tomato sandwich slightly smeared with JFG mayonnaise.
This morning I have pondered along with some of my friends what common ground there is between the generations of Americans that now bind us as a people. At one time it was our country’s deep agricultural heritage, the connection to the soil and what through sweat and hard work it could provide for both the sustenance and financial gain of the family.
Generations of Americans even those that lived in the cities, depended upon family farms to provide what our country needed to survive. In my lifetime, we have seen much of farming shift to larger business concerns and there has been a generation, possibly two, of individuals which have no close connection to the land, they didn’t grow up on the farm or even spend days helping their grandparents haul hay, cut okra, pick tomatoes or pull corn.
So, what does this mean for the future of our country, for the preservation of our lifestyle and the heritage of our communities? Are we destined to one-day build museums dedicated to the preservation of subdivisions? What values of history are we giving the current generation? Will they look back at a tractor and ask, “What’s that?”
With generations of Americans who have little or no practical daily connection to the land, how will they sustain themselves in an emergency such as a worldwide medical pandemic sometimes heralded by the media? What happens when milk can no longer be sent from the far-off mega-farms of the west? I bet there aren’t many households that have shelves lined with canned goods enough to get the family through to the next growing season, as was our ancestors’ custom. What will happen to a generation with no food because there will be no way to move it from place to place?
During the worst period in this country’s history, the Great Depression, even the poorest farmer, who was not devastated by natural disaster, had some amount of food to eat. Thousands of people who lived in the cities were able to receive food in soup lines because many farmers were able to keep working the land and caring people were willing to help those in need. They all had a connection to the land.
If our state, our county, our community was totally cut off from the outside world could we survive? Do we have a plan in place to feed and meet the needs of our population? Could we create the items needed for day-to-day life? Do we have the people who have the knowledge to do that?
While I’ll say that I believe that many leaders have considered the possibility, I do not think that we have a plan in place that could keep our state or county functioning on its own. It will take a joint effort at a local level, community to community, neighbor to neighbor, to see that each family or person makes it through in such a situation.
Will America ever face some catastrophe that will throw us backwards in time wishing that we had a few acres to plant potatoes and a milk cow to provide some milk and a horse to ride to town? I don’t know but even if it didn’t, it probably wouldn’t hurt if everybody knew how to dig taters, which part of the cow the milk comes from and how to get it to come out and just how do you get the key in a horse’s ignition and more important where are the brakes on one of them things. Just kidding, of course I know where the brakes are.
Do I have the answers as to what the future will be like, of course not, that is only in the Hands of God. Do I have a hope as to what I would like it to be? I certainly do.
I see an America that is covered with strong communities of caring and loving individuals who give their neighbors a helping hand when its needed. They go out of their way to help pick up a man when he is down, brush him off and help him along life’s road.
I see an America where greed and crime is something that exists only in the minds of creative novelists and film directors instead of the eyes our fellow man. I see an America where you make choices that are good for all the people not just a chosen few. I see an America where when a leader actually stands up and says something he or she actually believes rather than what the public wants to hear. Where his or her words of inspiration can actually mobilize this country towards a common good of creating a world that will be something our future generations can build from rather than have to pay for.
I see an America where each community is capable of standing on its own using the talents of its citizenry and the abilities of its businesses and industries no matter what the country as a whole may have to withstand in its future.
My friends the future of America is up to each one of us, its not just the job of Washington, Atlanta, Chattanooga, the guy next door, its not just the job of the woman down the street, it takes each of us working every single day improving our community as a whole by stepping outside our comfort zones and reaching out to make a difference.
It is up to us to have our own lives prepared for emergencies and to work with our local leaders to make sure that plans are in place. It is only through preparation that we as individuals or communities can reach out and help others, secure in the knowledge that our own families and communities are safe and adequate supplies are available to meet the needs at home.
Will this generation and those that follow be less because they are further removed from America’s roots? I think as long as our society continues to head in the same direction, each generation will make their way into the brave new world but it’s the what ifs that sometime worry me and make me thankful that God is in control. But even with God’s control, He expects all of us to do our part. Perhaps getting closer to and understanding the role that the land plays in our lives and making sure that that role never vanishes might be one way we can improve our little corner of the world.

Is there more to the future or the past?

/in /by

My brother asked me recently, ‘Are you living in the past?’ I often do find myself lingering within my memories. As time passes, I think it is easy to place more emphasis on what has gone by in your life than what is ahead.
That is probably especially so for someone who spends a great deal of time writing. You depend on your memories of experiences, people, places to bring your writing to life, add color, excitement and depth.
The summer days running through a spraying sprinkler with friends with slippery green grass beneath you bare feet. A call from the porch brings us running and dripping as my folks cut up an ice cold watermelon on the back porch handing a piece to each of the kids. As we smiled while chewing it to the deep green rind the red juice ran down our faces and hands leaving us so sticky but oh so satisfied.
Standing outside the closed green apartment door, I wait for my first date to or someone to answer it. Fearing that I was going to do something that would embarrass her and I in some way as the evening progressed. And finally when the evening was over the success finding that I didn’t make a fool of myself and there was some hope she might actually like me.
Looking out from behind the deep burgundy curtains to see one of the first audiences for which I would perform at my elementary school, feeling my heart beat faster and faster; hearing the parents and students talk amongst themselves as the play came close to the curtain opening.
Standing outside the tour bus anxiously waiting to catch a glimpse or maybe even shake the hand of an icon as he entered the Cathedral Caverns to record an album. I had not yet met the man who would play such a huge role in my life – Bill Monroe.
Looking across the wooded area where we were filming to see the arrival of television icon Carroll O’Connor and never being able to imagine the impact these steps would have on the rest of my life.
Holding the hands of my father and mother as they stepped through to the other side leaving their shared memories, deepest cares, greatest concerns, highest hopes and wonderful dreams with me.
I wrote a book series – Encouragers that has kept me embedded in the past for about three years. It provided me with some wonderful times folding myself into the past. It can be a great inspiration to look back and it can also bring great sorrow if one dwells more on what is gone than what is to be.
With the conclusion of the writing stage of my three-book Encouragers series: Finding the Light; Walking with the Masters; A Guiding Hand; I was hopeful and excited to look towards the future to create new opportunities, new adventures and new memories to write about.
Each day that dawns gives us the chance to write another chapter in our life or the life of another we may not even have met yet. Will you use this day to create a great adventure and make a difference? I am going to do my best to achieve that result, I hope you do too!