Bucket list item #1-THE REST OF THE STORY

My blog post of a couple of days back, you know the one about the plans I'm making for a 2 week and nearly 2,000 mile journey to see a lighthouse in Maine, has inspired several of my friends to send an e-mail my way.  A few of the messages question my reasoning for driving rather than flying, WHY the state of Maine of all places, as well has how on earth the book, "Sarah, Plain and Tall" could have had the influence it did over my decision to do all of this in the first place?  So hopefully, this post will do a fair enough job with filling in the story's gaps.  

First, "Sarah, Plain and Tall"~  Don't know how many of you have ever read Patricia MacLachlin's 1986 Newberry Award winner.  As a teacher, I've had the chance to read it to my  students many times over the years.  Just in case you've never heard of it~The book tells the story of a widowed farmer, Jacob Witting, who is living in western Kansas in the early 1900's.  Desperately looking for a wife who will help him raise his two young children, Caleb and Anna, he takes out an advertisement in a newspaper back East.  His ad is answered by a woman named Sarah Wheaton who makes the long journey from her home in Camden, Maine by train to the wide-open prairies of my home state, Kansas.

There are many poignant parts in the story, from the children's sometimes reluctant acceptance of Sarah, to Jacob's haunting memories of his late wife, to Sarah's being so very homesick for her beloved home in Maine.  Throw in a prairie fire, having to "pull" a calf as it is being born, and the mischievous episodes of cat named Seal...well, then you are talking about a book that is not only nearly impossible to put down but also hard to read JUST once.  Won't say more 'cause I want you to read it but I can tell you this...the ending is "perfect".

I loved the book, every single page, but there was one part that made a particularly lasting impression upon me.  In that part of the story, Sarah is homesick and so very much misses life back in Maine.  She yearns to see her home by the sea once again!  One day she goes to town to buy supplies and while there she purchases a drawing pad and colored pencils to show Caleb and Anna the "the blues and greens, the colors of the sea."  She proceeds to tell the children of this beautiful land that is so very far distant from their home on the dry and dusty Kansas prairie~Maine.

From the very first time I read that part in the book, I realized just how alike I was to those 2 children.  I'm a "farm girl" from the tiny Kansas town of Haven who has never in 56 years lived anywhere but Reno County, Kansas.  The only "seas" that I ever knew of were the seas of golden "hard red winter wheat" that my father harvested every summer.  Like Caleb and Anna Witting, "Peggy Miller" wanted to know too.  What would it be like to walk along that shoreline or smell the scent of the ocean?  Was it really as beautiful and enticing as Sarah made it sound?  I knew that one day I would HAVE to find out for myself.


Come June 1st I will do just that.  I look so forward to venturing out of the "comfort zone" I live in and seeing sights along the way that I have only heard others speak of.  Never been a fan of flying besides that, driving enables me to stop wherever I want to along the way.  Pretty sure there are plenty of things out there for me to see that aren't even ON the map.  And please don't worry about me, I won't plan to move there.  Maine will be a great place to visit, but "Peggy Miller's name" has always been and forever will be written in Kansas soil.  Good night friends!