Happy Thought for the Day

Yes, there is ugliness in the world. An unending supply, it seems, but if one only stays open to the Happy Spirit that is always around, yet invisible, one can glean some measure of joy in the ugliness.

Yesterday, I learned of the passing of a relative, a Viet Nam veteran like me, who died of several diseases related to his addiction to alcohol. That was my ugliness for the day, my sadness.

Yesterday, I also joined a Facebook group related to my childhood home, Wilton, New Hampshire. I have not been there in 50 years or more, but it is the place most of my USA ancestors are buried, having lived there since their immigrations in the early 1900's. Though I am a Traveler at heart and cannot identify any one place as "home," Wilton is where my parents' and grandparents' "are from." And really, it is also my "hometown."

The urge to return, if only for a visit to touch base with my ancestors' gravesites, is strong. It is something I must do before I, too, take that last journey to the ground somewhere.

I did not expect anyone to remember or even know me. After all, I have not been there in 50 years, only attended the first few grades of elementary school there before relocating to Amman, Jordan, where I would live for most of my childhood, before returning to the USA. And there have been many changes to every 'small town', including Wilton, NH.

Imagine my surprise after making my first post, a short one about Burns Hill, the hill on which my paternal grandparents, Fred and Minnie Wilkinson, lived in a mobile home after downsizing after their retirement from Abbott Mills, selling their house on Forest Street, and relocating.

A woman whose name I do not recognize wrote this:

"Ahhhh one of the five Js...."

That might not seem significant, but it is huge. Just YU-U-UGE. (Okay, sorry.)

You see, I have four siblings and my parents, Fred James and Beverly Wilkinson, gave us all first names starting with 'J'. My grandfather, Fred Wilkinson, had a New Hampshire vanity license plate on his car: JJJJJ, and everyone around town knew us as the 'five J's.'

So reading that from a woman whose name I do not recognize means she knows me. Perhaps she is a relative or a neighborhood friend. No matter.

The draw to return to Wilton got stronger yesterday. Much stronger. That was my happy moment.