By David and Charlotte Anderson
“HOME” Decorative Rustic Letters declared the label on the box.
Someone had rearranged the letters to spell MEOH which, as it turns out, apparently wasn’t viewed with amusement as a return to the store proved.
The letters had been rearranged as originally intended.
Turns out, MEOH isn’t a word.
As a matter of fact, there are no words, at all, using all four letters, that can spell anything but home. Rearrange them however you want and the only word you will always get, and only get, is home.
Get home.
The wish, the heart, the mind, the emotions, all, for most people, express the longing to get home.
“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there
Which seek thro’ the world, is ne’er met elsewhere
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home
There’s no place like home!
“An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again
The birds singing gaily that came at my call
And gave me the peace of mind dearer than all
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home!”
These lyrics penned in 1823 by American actor and dramatist John Howard Payne to “Home! Sweet Home!” were reputedly banned from being played in Union Army camps during the American Civil War “for being too redolent of hearth and home and so likely to incite desertion” (Wikipedia).
The final scene of MGM’s “The Wizard of Oz” has Dorothy (played by Judy Garland), after she had returned from the Land of Oz, telling her family “there’s no place like home.”
Australian Joan Sutherland, “widely regarded as one of the greatest sopranos of all time,” sang “Home Sweet Home” at her two stage farewells.
No matter how the letters are unscrambled, you will always and forever get home.
Get home.
Grand and ornate, or simple and unpretentious, there is no place like home.
There is within the human heart a homing device, a recording of familiar songs and childhood memories, and it is always drawing, forever tugging, and faithfully leading us home.
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