"You Can Never Go Home Again"

Well, that's not entirely true, is it? Now that I'm back in the Midwest it's as easy as taking Portage Road south 'til the fourth cornfield and hanging a left. And viola. Back in my hometown.

When I first left "home" I wasn't ready. I was a teenager - emotional, bitchy, scared. Typical. And so "home" became almost myth-like. The stuff of epic poems (and didn't I write a few).

But one of the things I know at thirty-five, that I didn't know at fourteen (dear lord, let's hope there's more than one) - is that home is just a place you start out. Not to discredit its indelible mark on me. My home happened to be in the middle of nowhere, just south of bumfuck township. I was detassling corn at age twelve. Shit like that changes a person.

But it's not all that I am.

I am not a corn detassler. In fact, I'm not a big fan of dirt. I used to think there was something wrong with me because I didn't like plants in my house. Until along came the day my old boss said "dirt doesn't belong inside." I've not had a plant in my house since that glorious day.

I am not trailer trash, though let it be known by the general public that I did grow up in a trailer park. Granted, our trailer park had tennis and basketball courts, a softball field, bike trails and was on a lake. But still, I like to think it was a character-building experience to sleep a good many summer nights in the basement of the community center during tornado season.

I am not hick. I know how to use the English language and use it correctly about 85% of the time. I did not "seen" or "saw'll" something. I "saw" it. I prefer "milk" to "melk". I do, however, use "ain't" a lot, but I think the people who know me know that I know that that ain't a word I'd use around people I was trying to impress.

There are things about home that I adore and are dear to my heart. I wonder if my little niece will ever know about county fairs, I wonder if she will be able to tell (on sight) the difference between sweet corn and field corn. I wonder if she will be able to tell (on smell) whether you're coming up on a pig farm or cow farm. I wonder if she'll have friends in the FFA or 4-H. I wonder if she'll ever fish in a row boat or pick and shell walnuts.

While those are fond memories of home, it's not like the kids who are living there now are all enamored with their unknown ability to distinguish between different kinds of farm animal feces. And so maybe it isn't so much that you can never go home again. It's just that with all you've learned, why would you? It's already given you all you need to make something of yourself. The rest is up to you.