I recently read “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl” by Timothy Egan. A good read. The book came out in 2006, but I must have missed it while Dawn and I were earlobe deep in what I now recognize as our “best hard time”.

That time when we were parents to little kids. That time when the gaps between the ends seemed as if they would never meet. That time when we thought that who we were was who we would always be. That time when we hadn’t yet realized the difference between a job and a vocation. The best hard times.

I’ve heard it said that nostalgia and hope are thieves of the present, but sometimes I find myself wishing I was still a dad to little kids and willingly sacrifice a bit of the present for a bit of the past. I’m well aware that this little wave of nostalgia I allow to roll over me is going to leave me a little bit sad, but I wade in and let it wash over me anyway.

Perhaps if I allow it to dampen my spirits from time to time it won’t build to an unmanageable level and drown me. Perhaps. I was walking through Walmart the other day, picking up the sort of odds and ends one my age picks up at Walmart…stool softener…antacids…plantar fasciitis insoles…seven-day pill organizer…readers…bag of jerky…dental picks, when I unwittingly waded into the toy section and weathered a rogue wave of nostalgia.

The toy section, the space where many moons ago, our children would disappear into while my wife and I shopped for the sort of odds and ends young families require…Pop Tarts…string cheese…Fruity Pebbles…toilet paper…lots and lots of toilet paper. So it goes. The toy section, a place of enduring hope where you see little kids “just wanting to look” but hoping that if they muster up a sufficiently longing and pitiful look at the object of their desire, that the adult holding the purse strings will take note of their sincere need of the latest plastic prized possession, grant their approval, and pony up the cash.

I know this because I felt that look overcome me as a kid in the Ben Franklin Store in Stanley, North Dakota, and from time to time as a husband when I “just want to look” at guitars, bikes, and 1970 Jeep CJ7s. Same look…different toys.

Lillian Sandberg and Gordy McEvers were right. In 2006, Lillian in her 90s and Gordy in in his 80s, were the oldest woman and man in Lignite, so I interviewed them for a book I helped put together for the 2007 Lignite Centennial celebration. When I asked them, “If you could go back in time, what time would you go back to?” They both said that they would go back to when their kids were young and all still living at home.

That time when money was a little short, but needs were mostly met and wants were often left wanting. That time when, as my mom says, “The days are long, but the years are short.”

What time would you go back to?

So, if you ever happen upon me milling about the toy section of Walmart in a misty-eyed stupor of nostalgia…I’ll be fine…nothing a bit of stool softener won’t remedy.

The best hard times. May you have just enough.