I love this particular town that I live in. I was born and raised here. I went to school here. I’ll probably die here. I know that sounds like a bad country song but it’s true. I lived in other towns and cities, and I feel like I’ve satisfied any desire to live somewhere else. So that made it easier to come back to my hometown to live.

Someday I may lose my job and we may have to move far away. But I will always love my hometown. To the outside observer it’s probably no place special. There’s no big single draw or any natural landmarks to speak of. It’s a town like thousands of others in the US; small population, one larger employer, and so on. For me the special part is the people. It’s the relationships that I have with others in this town that make me want to stay here. I could see where it would be hard for a newcomer to come into a small town and ingratiate themselves. Small towns are full of conservative and weary people. They want to make sure that someone is going to fit in and mesh well with others before they open their arms and welcome someone into the extended family.

It’s also this conservative nature of small town folk that keeps one in line. If someone deviates too much from normal accepted practices then they relegated to the lower social class. I personally grew up in this lower class and I’ve made great strides (or, more honestly, my wife has pulled me up) to enter the “higher” class of citizens. This is a class where money and opportunities are more prevalent, but erratic signs of emotions are discouraged. This is a class where discretion and self-control are valued traits.

I’m not in this higher class to prove my worthiness to others, rather I’m in it to prove my worthiness to myself. I look at the other people in this class as mirrors, and I like to see myself reflected positively. Sure, there are some people in this class that are superficial and somewhat phony but for the most part it’s a good group to be in. It’s a group that I’ve always kinda felt like I should belong to, but my upbringing and own lack of self-confidence had told me that I wasn’t good enough. My wife is different. She grew up just as lower-middle-class (if not poorer) than I did, but she slid right into the higher class with grace and dignity, without shedding of her integrity in order to “fit in”. She is still the same down to earth person as she’s always been but she mingles and merges with this higher class without any trace of difficulty. In a way, she changes the behavior of others around her instead of herself being changed. That gives me a good grounding in feeling that our current elevated lifestyle is “real”, like there’s nothing phony or pretentious going on. Our wedding anniversary is Saturday and after 15 years of being together I’m still in awe of her and how far she’s come given her childhood. She’s my inspiration.

So getting back to small towns, I could see how someone would move if it’s for adventure or job opportunities. But I don’t understand people who grew up in our town and then move to a similar surrounding town, and then drive here to work. Maybe they’ve damaged their reputation here and would never be accepted? Maybe they’re racist? They’re probably racist.