Pinto Beans and Cornbread

Our trip to Europe was coming to an end.  My father-in-law and I were standing on a bridge in Paris overlooking the Seine.  Our travels had taken us through Germany and Switzerland and now we were in France.

We had seen some breath taking sights, eaten some wonderful food, met a lot of different people, traveled by airplane, train, subway, and automobile, slept in a lot of different hotels, been lost in unfamiliar places, hiked down mountains, walked on rocky beaches, looked into the face of the Mona Lisa, and had the time of our lives.

That evening, as the sun was slowly sinking and Notre Dame Cathedral loomed in the distance, my father-in-law said to me, "Eric, we have had a good trip, but right now I would give all the money in my pocket for some pinto beans and cornbread."

It is good to travel; to get out and see the world.  It is a good thing to know that your way of living is not the only way; that you are not the center of the universe.  It is good to feel out of place, to learn new words and do things in a different order.

But it is also good to know that there is a place for you, a place that fits you like a glove, a place that is yours, that you know and you don't have to think before you act; a place that feels, and smells and tastes like home when you return- like pinto beans and cornbread.