Kent said something sad last night. We were down at the town
park last night for the Labor Day festivities. It was a lovely
night, but then Kent said, "You know, we don't really live in
Mayberry. There are too many people here that we don't know."

Of course we knew a lot of people. But he was right. Probably
eight or nine out of ten we didn't know. Down the road a piece,
in two or three directions, are smaller communitites even than
ours. I suppose if you lived there and went to their festivities
you'd be more likely to know eight or nine out of every ten people
you ran across.

So, we don't actually live in Mayberry, but you can see Mayberry
from where we live.

One person that we did run across last night was Jen. She is almost
my second daughter. She and Tyler are practically twins. And she
is one of the best friends of Billy and Tyler. Jen was wondering why
I never write about Billy going off to college this year. Good question.
I have followed closely Owlhaven's musings on her oldest daughter
leaving for college and how strange it feels to set a smaller table and
to have one less person to kiss goodnight. Maybe that is why I have
avoided writing about it. When you invest so very much time, energy
and prayer into a persons's life, it hurts to have them gone, even though
the gaining of their maturity is the very reason you have spent so much
of your life on them.

The peeling away hurts, even though it is a grand hurt.