There's a John Mellencamp song called "Small Town" which I firmly believe should be played at least four times every day by NPR and even more often by other radio stations, including whatever network it is that employs Howard Stern.
is it great art? Well... the line "I cannot forget where it is that I come from" - how can you deny that it's perfect?
well, all right, you could, but only if you didn't spend your formative years in the same small town - if you had you would still think that the phrase a bit garbled, but you'd get the sentiment. Wait, that makes it sound like I grew up in Seymour, Indiana. I didn't. I just spent all of my childhood in the same small town.
Anyway, as Mellencamp says, I was born in a small town. A friend was scouting around on Facebook and found one of those "Top 20 Reasons" lists, in this case, ways that you know that you are from my small town. In just a few lines, it brought back so many memories... and then I started thinking about what the writer listed, and realized that he or she must be about ten years younger than I am (ulp) but how funny it is that I can date that based upon the names of stores on Main Street.
Anyway, I raise my cup of orange juice (need to go buy more) to "the place that I come from" - I have no desire to move back there, but it is beautiful and despite everything, I still love it.
2 comments:
I wasn't born in a small town and I didn't stay in one place for very long, but I had a similar Facebook experience, finding a similar list for the town I lived in the longest, by dint of having lived there twice and for the two longest periods I lived anywhere until I moved here. I've been flooded with some pretty strong memories and also have reconnected with a lot of old friends, including one that I don't think I've seen since the third grade. I'm discovering I love it much more for having left it. Maybe that's the nature of such things.
I was born in a suburb of Cleveland but we moved to Kent when I was a toddler and I have lived in the same two blocks ever since. I am hopelessly, eternally and forever a small town girl. I'd feel like a fish out of water in the big city. I love the intimacy of small towns and the feeling of always being home and seeing the same familiar faces day in, day out. It feels like family. And no amount of big city living can ever replace that feeling.
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