Turning Toward Home: Vacations' End, 2012's Beginning

Bags are packed. Cab is called for the morning. The folder with the last round of reservations and itineraries is sorted and placed in the carry-on. The final small gift bought, the final meal before cleaning out the apartment's fridge.

Time for the vacation to end. Time to go home. Already, since yesterday, OS feels himself get into gear for life back home. Tomorrow includes a business meeting in London, even. The time off was so sweet while it lasted.

England is quite a place. The alarming headlines, even if true, don't tell the story of the people who live here. They are resilient, mainly cheerful and good-humored. I visited small houses, with small kitchens, lived in by people who drive small cars. The walls are lined with books, the small gardens are often small masterpieces of design. They don't understand places like Brentwood, Tennessee, with its square miles of big brick boxes with pick-ups in the driveway driven by people who haven't read a book in years.

The old WWII sign 'Keep Calm and Carry On' (and variations) has popped up again, on shirts, mugs, fridge magnets, etc. It summarizes what OS has seen here--a determination to muddle through and be happy anyway. They have seen worse, and their parents and grandparents much much worse. It's not hard to spot where the Luftwaffe did its dirty work seventy years ago, and one hears old East London accents well away from the old neighborhoods, as the inhabitants had to be relocated in the war's wake. Each little church and school seems to have a plaque recording the names of the boys lost to the two world wars--and the lists stretch on and on.

As far as the recession goes,  if the streets full of shoppers are any indication, there's not that much of a downturn still in place. Groceries brim with fresh everything, and prices there are pretty reasonable. People aren't driving old cars, the trains are full but not overrun, and run on schedule. And with rare exception, people here seem uninterested in staying aboard the EU ship while it scuttles itself. A cabbie refused a Euro coin proffered, half in jest, saying, 'No mate, not interested. It won't be worth anything soon enough.'

Again, this is the south of England, in a university town, so the impression may be skewed. But morale seems pretty high, which OS did not expect.

So, home again, to the wild wooly United States, and OS's beloved small-town life.

He will miss this place as he departs.