“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.”
Hodding Carter Jr. said that, and he was right.
When we raise our children here, we are giving them the gift of roots in a wonderful and nurturing community.
Owensboro is the perfect balance of “small town” and “big city.”
Every neighborhood has its own personality, and we are all better together. Our hometown offers a wide spectrum of performing and visual arts … outstanding educational experiences with dedicated teachers … beautiful parks and outdoor spaces … sports and science and music and libraries … friends and families and classmates and teammates and neighbors, some who have been here for generations, others who have chosen to make this their home, all of whom make all of us better.
When I travel with my family, and especially with my grandchildren, I make it a priority to encourage them to look around and see, really see, the places we visit.
I ask them to think about what it might be like to live there, wherever “there” may be. But it is important for kids to realize that although Owensboro may be the center of their world, it is not the center of the world.
In some cities, people do a lot more walking than they do here. They ride subways and navigate metro systems. The sidewalks are crowded with strangers flowing like fast-moving streams. The streets are packed with cars, taxis and buses, with an atmosphere of hustle-bustle that we can compare only to Highway 54 on Black Friday.
In other, more rural, places, a family may live miles away from anyone else. Travel to the next town is measured not in miles but in time, as in “That’s about an hour away.” Silence and solitude are the more intimate soundtracks of life in these vast, open spaces.
We stare in wonder at oceans and mountains and canyons and plains that natives take for granted, giving them hardly a glance as they go about their everyday lives.
Maybe the weather in other places is different. Harsh winters with lots of snow, or maybe no snow at all. Steady, relentless winds. A sun that feels different from the one we know. Clear nights with so many stars. Smog. Brilliant autumn foliage.
Sometimes the people look different. They wear clothes and fashions unlike those we usually see. They eat foods unfamiliar to us, sing songs we’ve never heard, have unique accents that make us really listen to understand what is being said.
But then, when we come back home, leaving behind the mountains or the ocean and all the things that make “there” different from “here,” it is important to see our own familiar people and places with fresh eyes, to listen to our classmates and friends and neighbors with new ears.
Because no matter where we go, no matter how far apart we may be, we all really live in the same place.
The way we look, the way we sound, the way we live, work, play or pray – those differences are never as big as the ways in which we are all alike.
When we allow our children to learn those lessons … that is the gift of wings.
