by Dave Hanson of Gheen, Retired Cook School Teacher

When we were small we could run around in the yard, but never go out alone. We could get lost. So some parents scared their kids with the Boogeyman stories. The big kids did it with the big bad wolf, and the bears. It may have caused nightmares, but it kept the kids from wandering away from the yard. Mom or some older kid would always be with until about first grade when we started doing simple chores. Then the barnyard was the limits. But it was always home that we returned to wherever we went. And even when you grow up, the call to come home is strong if your parents were good. If not, people got mad and never returned.

We know people move around. Even in the Sahara the nomads trek on the camels, but they follow the same paths. They could only do it with camels that can walk between familiar oases. And the Laplanders do follow their deer over large areas of Siberia, but they take the same migration routes and return to familiar places.

Those nomads in northern Iran herd their sheep and goats over huge mountains to summer pastures and back again in the fall. But even if they travel far and wide, it’s similar territory.

When I was in UMD, the professors told us kids that the Iron Range was a ghetto because the people didn’t have to leave. They had good schools, doctors, dentists and every kind of business they needed. And so those people had good jobs and could stay put.

It’s when your back is against the wall and you have no other choice but to move that people move into some other country.

And even when the immigrants came here, they wanted to make it good and return home to the old country. Most never made it back, but they still had their childhood memories.

“Home Sweet Home,” no matter how humble.