Stranger In My Home Town? Yikes!

It has taken me a while to realize just how homesick I had become, living in that thar city 800 miles south of here.

The city had its points. Concerts. Universities. Libraries. Sports teams. Museums. Theaters. Oodles of shopping malls.

The city had other points too. Traffic. Pollution. Stress. Other people's dirt. Crime. Shoot, in that one apartment complex I got mugged, had a shipment of checks stolen, had two incidents of vandalism on my car, and my apartment got broken into. Twice! I had friends who didn't want to come and visit me even in the daytime, for crying out loud. Why didn't I move out? I couldn't afford a safer apartment that was as large as what I was renting in that crime center, that's why.

But now here I am, back home again in . . . well, Midwest farm country. I still lock the car every time I leave it, but I probably don't have to. I have lived off supermarket produce so long that it doesn't occur to me to harvest the rhubarb patch in the back yard of this house.

I was driving over to my sister's house last night, and (not for the first time) I thought of how beautiful farm country really is. It isn't exciting, no. It is flat or perhaps "rolling" a little. But last spring I enjoyed the sight of dark brown earth grooved by perfectly straight rows of green plants poking their heads up into the sunlight. And I have spent the entire summer enjoying the colors of the various crops as they grow, the contrasts between dark green beans and lighter green cornstalks with light brown tassles on top.

My sister and I drove together to a nearby town for an ice cream social followed by a band concert. This is archetypal rural life: a summer night with ice cream, cake, and band music in the city park. The band was good, the music had a lot of variety, and I sat there with my sister and had a whopping good time.

And when I got home I would like to say it was a quiet evening, but the night critters were almost deafeningly loud as I went into the house.

Still, I feel like a stranger. I grew up here (well, from the fifth grade on), graduated from high school here. My parents retired and died here. After high school I went to college, started to get work away from here, drifted off, and I eventually wound up in that city. I came back from time to time but I gradually lost contact with most of the people I had known in my youth. But here I am, back home, and a few weeks ago my high school class celebrated its 45th reunion. Forty-five!

After 45 years. I don't know very many people any more. The folks I grew up with, those who stayed here, I don't even recognize when I see them. I don't remember who married whom. And of course there are other people whom I am meeting now for the first time. Most of the people I actually recognize are from my parents' generation, and I enjoy it when they speak of my parents. But they are the only people I feel like I know!

I hadn't expected to feel like a stranger in my home town. There were some things I had expected, but that wasn't one of them. It will pass, though, as I continue to live here and see these folks again and again. There is a 45-year gap between then and now, but we can pick it up again.