I was Watching the The Waltons this morning, an old TV series that ran back in 1971. The story line took place in the Blue Ridge Mountains as some of you may remember. I would call it a piece of Americana and it is where that infamous line “goodnight Johnboy” comes from.
I deeply enjoy the show because it speaks of family, friends and community during one of the toughest times America has seen…the Great Depression. It is about taking pleasure in the smallest things in life when you don’t have anything else and how those thing turn out to be the greatest value. It reminds me of some of my greatest treasures. Like my memories of my grandparents. Now they didn’t live with us as they did on the Waltons, but we visited them often deep in the piney woods of East Texas.
I remember the summers most fondly as all of my cousins would go to stay with my grandparents for the summer. They had an extra room with built in bunk beds for all us grandkids. I was the oldest boy and can remember lying there on a still East Texas summer night with the windows open, lighting bugs floating near 
the tree line and telling my younger cousins that those glowing lights were really eyes! Yes, Bigfoot was watching us from just beyond the thicket I would tell my cousins as they pulled the sheets further over their heads. I remember scary myself as much as them!
I would awake in the morning, intact of course as the lighting bugs never manifested into anything more menacing than my imagination. As my body began to take in all the senses around me, my ears would tune into the warbler singing in the tree outside the window. Then my body would start to move and feel the sensation of the quilt covering me that Grandma made from her wedding dress, my father’s first overalls and other various scraps, each with its own tale to tell. Then my nose would first tune into the rich, sandy East Texas soil, then the pines swaying in the morning breeze and finally to the kitchen. Grandma was up baking biscuits!
I remember watching Grandma roll out the dough and cut each biscuit with a tin cutter. The one I have now. She put some much love into her baking because it was for us. I didn’t understand it at the time, for I didn’t think my grandparents were poor, but truth be told they were living with limited means although I never knew it. Their little house in the woods felt like a mansion to me and the world outside it a place for a boy to discover himself. Grandma gave us everything she had and those things even though not material; fill my heart even today.
Grandpa was no different; he taught me how to chop wood, how to fish and how to be patient with my younger cousins. I’ll never forget him teaching me how to swim in the lake and more particular how to dive. My I can remember how that seemed to be such an important thing at the time. We would load up in Grandpas old 1953 Chevy truck with a wooden bed, all of us, Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. How we all fit I don’t know, but we didn’t mind being close back then. In fact it felt wonderful to be cradled in your aunts or uncles arms, safe from the perils of potholes in the old asphalt road as the truck puttered towards the swimming hole. Once there we would all unload with inner-tubes in hand and run as fast as we could splashing in with a big belly flop. I have so many memories in that swimming hole.
Truth be told my soul is filled with 100 hundreds of wonderful memories from those times in that little house. I suppose
that is why the Waltons resonate with me so much. Even though they grew up in one of the most difficult times in American history they were rich. We are embarking on yet another challenging time, not just in America but the world. We as a race of people have a great deal of challenges that lie before us. Things are changing whether we like it or not and I believe it is this richness of spirit that will keep us going. My Grandparents made it through the depression and I know I can make it through this one with loving friends, family and community by my side. This is why I believe building community is so important. We need a piece of land that will nourish us and on that spot of dirt we need to build homes that will shelter us from the storms ahead. We need to form those places and bonds now before the really difficult times hit us. I know we won’t be totally insulated, but we will have a bit more say in how we live our lives. I urge you that if this resonates at all with you join us or your community and start learning to live a more sustainable, enriched life. We need your help, your resources and knowledge. Bring whatever it is you have and let’s get to work. We need to start making choices about what is important in our lives. For me, it is the love and support that comes from living this type of life. It may be a simpler life to some, but it is one that filled with deep rewards beyond imagination. Help us build our own “Waltons Mountain”.