When I read Tara Westover’s memoir, “Educated,” she brought up a point most people wouldn’t get because they never thought about it. I missed it. And once Westover pointed the obvious out, it seemed like a neon sign, but that’s the nature of people, especially those who are raised in small towns. Normal is what you grow up with and see every day. That doesn’t mean it’s normal outside that context. In fact, it might not be anywhere near normal.
Westover’s father was a lunatic on the order of magnitude. More than once he told his family not to use seatbelts while he was driving, and drove through blizzards at sixty miles an hour because God was looking out after him and his family. God wasn’t. Mr. Westover wrecked his van more than once, injuring his wife and children. He barely survived an accident involving a gasoline explosion, and so did his oldest son. But to Tara Westover, who grew up in this environment, isolated from the rest of the world, this was normal.
I awoke a couple of hours ago, about two in the morning, and couldn’t remember the name of the pizza place in my hometown.
Pizza Hut experimented with have a franchise in Blakely Georgia, but it closed sooner than later. Blakely is one of those towns that is on the brink of becoming bigger and always will be. It keeps spreading away from the center of town, as most small towns do, but it’s like a condiment on a butter knife trying to cover an entire bun. There’s only so much.
People in small towns yearn for change as long as everything stays the same. No one ages, no one dies and no one is unhappy, until someone old dies, unhappily. But replacements are a dime a dozen, and the process begins anew with each death, only the names change.
But I can’t remember the name of the original pizza place.
So on occasion, my father would send me to go get pizza. He could give me money and I would walk the mile or so to the pizza place, whose name is gone forever now. I never stopped to think it was odd he sent me out on foot to get food, but it was never warm when I got back. No sidewalks or anything like that, and I wonder if people saw me walking with a pizza. We could have called it in, a minute or so both ways in a car, and then the pizza would still be hot. Of course, I ate it anyway because it never occurred to me things could be different.
The house that belongs to my father was always his house. I was a tenant, off and on, until I bought my first house, yet the house I bought was my first home, the first place I ever felt like I belonged. My father’s house was a prison when I was in school, and later, it was a symbol of my failure to launch, but never home. Never.
I’ve lived in the house in the woods now for nearly twenty-five years. Six dogs and a cat found their final resting place here. The nearest pizza place is eight miles away. The memories of my hometown pale a bit more every year, and Google Maps show me an alien and unwelcoming town where I was a stranger when I lived there, and I always will be.
Take Care,
Mike
I’m terrified now of people who are terrified of change. People who go bananas when the neighbour paints his house a different colour, or a new hymn gets sung at church. My poor mum lived in the same house for decades and always painted the kitchen yellow and green. The neighbours kept suggesting more modern (and easier on the eyes) colours and she’d get so upset, because “it’s always been that colour.” Yes, that was pretty normal to me until I got my first apartment and the landlord had painted everything white. Holy moly hockey goalie, it was beautiful, and I made blue curtains and had accent colours and what a huge and wonderful change to experience. The Westover book terrified me because it was true. People are still bringing up their kids to resist education and intelligence and progressive change (and washing their hands, that grossed me out big time.)
Mauve,
for years my hair was thinning and thinning, so one Saturday I shaved my head. When I went to work Monday morning, I was wearing a hat, and when I took it off people freaked out.
That was 1998.
Most of the people I know right now have never seen me with hair. They think bald is normal for me. Yet it doesn’t matter, in the end, because me being bald doesn’t truly affect anyone at all.
Washing hands, yeah, that might cause some nasty virus or something. Ick.
You bring up a good point, that changing one’s hair, and a whole universe of other things, doesn’t truly affect anyone at all. Maybe that’s a question we can ask, and encourage others to ask when confronted with change: How will this change actually affect me?
Mauve, when a friend of mine came over one day and after a few moments of small talk blurted out, “Mike, I’m gay,” all I said was, “Okay, does that mean we aren’t playing pool tonight?” I think he was a little stunned, a lot relieved, and in our circle of friends, no one cared. I kinda suspected as much anyway. A woman I knew flirted with him one night and he didn’t notice or pretended not to notice and that made me wonder.
Just about everyone that grew up thought what happened in their childhood was normal as they did not know anything else unless they went to friend’s houses or travelled.
Even as a kid, I thought seat belts made sense–even just the lap belts.
People everywhere are reluctant to change–or afraid of it. I have across many. But like you, I do like having a home with my stuff and family to come back to.
Tim, the day I decided to cut all ties with my hometown was a weird thing. It was like deciding not to hit myself in the face with a hammer. Surely, you would think, that’s an easy call to make. But it never is. It’s like trying to stop smoking or drinking or anything else that’s bad for you, but you’ve always done it.
In the end, I had to create home. I had to reinvent what it meant.
In the end, I had to rediscover me.
I understand.
About a month after I graduated, I got a job that was 2 states away. A few years after I moved, my parents moved to another town, so I did not see my hometown much since.
The last time I was there was maybe 6 years ago, and it looked completely different. And not really in a good way.
To me as a kid moving was normal. partly because my dad left us and our home got repossessed, and partly because of the military. Seemed normal to always be the new kid. I didn’t want that for my son. I found a place, rented said place for 25 years. My son went to school from k-12 with all the same kids. His best friend is a kid he has known since middle school. I wanted him to have the roots I never did. I have no friends from school. I couldn’t tell you what anyone I went to school with is up to or even where they are.
After my son graduated from college with his masters I did however, encourage him to stay in a larger area. I knew this area could never give him the value of his learning or enough to pay back his student loans. He did pay back his loans. He also gave me the money for a down payment for a house. I don’t rent anymore.
Sometimes change is good, just not too much all at once.
Chick, change is like learning to swim. Once you learn how the next thing you learn is how much you don’t know. Then there’s deep water. Sure, you can drown in water that is an inch deeper than you are tall, but the idea of swimming into a place you can’t touch bottom means you really have to know what you’re doing. I’ve learned that change is good, but always scares the hell out of you at first.