Officially Homesick

Memorial Day has made me homesick...that begs the question can I be homesick for somewhere that I was not born and raised?    

I was raised in Medford NJ.  A wonderful little town that has a Memorial Day Parade every year..they had theirs today.  So did Medford Lakes.  There were many stops along the way before my husband and I ended up in Orange Park FL.  We lived there 27 years before moving to WV 7 months ago. Orange Park is NOT a little town, quite transeint because of the large military presence.  Today I missed them both...terribly.

I had to drive "downtown" to drop something off.  As I was leaving the neighborhood, I noticed something.  Our house was the ONLY house flying the flag.  Actually, on Memorial Day and Fouth of July, we line our walkway with flags and today was no different. Not ONE  American flag in sight.  I checked the entire neighborhood.  Then I headed into town.  The only flags I saw were at the Hometown bank and the Volunteer Fire Dept. (they fly daily/lighted)  I felt a small bit better when I hit Main Street because the town had put flag up on the telephone poles..but as I checked only two other businesses had flags.....not ONE house had a flag.

That would never happen in Orange Park. In my little neighborhood a good amount of the neighbors fly the flag every day.  Our house is one of them we have  a 20ft. lighted flagpole, we fly 24/7.  On holidays, probably 80% of the homes have Old Glory proudly displayed which is quite an effort because many of my neighbors are elderly. (Fox Valley you ROCK!) That is repeated in neighborhood after neighborhood. Maybe Orange Park is such a "flag flyin'" town because we are such a military town.  If so, I miss my Navy town.

I have been gone from Medford a long time...but I would bet it is still the kind of town that when our flag passes by at the parade you do not have to ask people to stand...they just do.

I miss the flags...I miss knowing that my neighbors fly the flag because they care.....they "get it".  I don't know if the lack of flags denotes lack for care or patriotism but it made me sad.....and homesick.