I recently saw Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion. So many of the things in the movie reminded me of my home in Minnesota. (Sidenote – After I saw that movie, I saw The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep is, I think, the best living film actress. Blew my socks off.)
Anyway, I started listening to some of the Prairie Home Companion shows on NPR. Aside from some of the minor politics I disagree with, the show generally overwhelms me with nostalgia for my hometown.
Garrison Keillor was talking this morning about growing up with chickens and turkeys on a farm and how they were a responsibility for everyone in the family. Then he shared that most families don’t do this anymore. Chickens are no longer grown in a joyous place for families and children, but are now raised at a “concentration camp” that we would never dare let our children see. He talked about going up to the cabin and seeing giant cabins on the lake (which can hardly be called cabins because cabins don’t have hot tubs and tennis courts). He said that people in those “cabins” grow weeds in their yard and call it “prairie restoration.” He also said that those people are generally disagreeable, not that we would know because we never talk to them.
Heh heh.
I love Minnesota and I miss it sometimes. Life here is so different, so much faster. My person has shifted to adapt to the needs of Silicon Valley, but my heart still embraces and envisions a home on the prairie with chickens.