Small Town

As sung by John Mellencamp

Well, I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Prob’ly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities

All my friends are so small town
My parents live in the same small town
My job is so small town
Provides little opportunity

Educated in a small town
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town
Used to daydream in that small town
Another boring romantic that’s me

But I’ve seen it all in a small town
Had myself a ball in a small town
Married an LA doll and brought her to this small town
Now she’s small town just like me

No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be

Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look who’s in the big town
But my bed is in a small town
Oh, and that’s good enough for me

Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me

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The last few days it has hit me about just how small this town is and why I was in such a hurry to leave it 25 years ago. I wanted to be anywhere but Pulaski, TN. I remember my best friend Monti and I joking about the "grandma hotline"- how everyone's grandmother knew everyone else's and made sure they told all the news there was to each other.

I became a private person. I wanted to distance myself from my family not because I was ashamed of them but because I had lived in their shadow for so long. I had been the invisible kid without an identity of my own. I wanted to find myself. Sorry to say that when I ran from Pulaski, I was trying to run away from myself. It has taken the last few years of me really working a daily inventory to learn that.

But I've got to tell you the last few months with Barbara trying to create a family out of us has really taken its toll on me. I don't like everyone knowing my business. If it's to be told I'd rather it be me that told it. Yesterday's blow up with the neighbors really hammered that home to me. I regret losing my temper but I do not regret clearing the air.

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Theme song to Cheers

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name.

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...


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I never knew that there was more to the song what what they played at the beginning of every episode of Cheers but I should have guessed that there was.

Today I saw a community- the workers at the Giles County Animal Hospital- come together to help my brother make it on his own with that tom cat he has taken in. They really gave him a discount on the surgery that poor old Tiger had to have. I was expecting a bill of more than $500 and it only came to $155. I think it helped that one person there knew who Barry was and wanted to help him.

Today as I ate lunch with the Three Musketeers- Lisa, Mary Jo and Vicki- the same feeling hit me about myself. Here were three people who know some pretty bad things about my life and love me just the same. It was nice not to have to explain a lot of things to them about what's going on in my life. It was like picking up where we had left off.

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“Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.” 115

“Home,” he mocked gently.

“Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us 120
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”

“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
From Death of a Hired Man, Robert Frost

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And so it is- none of us deserve the feeling that home gives us. We can run from it but ultimately we always return for one reason or another. I think I may be glad I did.