I want to live where

it's safe and simple
compact
confined

Where there's one traffic light in the middle of town but no one pays much mind to it; where one store carries all the food you don't grow yourself, and another carries all the tools and jute string and nails you'll ever need, and the floor creeks when you walk on it. I want to live where people eat outside in the summer, under big leafy shade trees, on red and white checkered table cloths; where it rains cats and dogs at night on a tin roof that lulls in thunderous pitter patters.

I want to live somewhere where heroes still wear uniforms and march in parades, where people fly flags and hang red-white-and-blue bunting on the 4th of July and Memorial Day because it's just what you do and it looks nice; where we welcome the hometown soldier's war bride that looks different and talks funny but laughs like we do, and tries to fit in, and cries like we do.

I want to live where you know the guy on the radio and he reads obituaries on the air and announces church pot lucks; where Sunday is for dress shirts and slacks and rest; where your church is okay for you and mine is okay for me and you and I don't mind at all just leaving it that way; where dinner is meat and potatoes and gravy and soft rolls with salty sweet butter and just enough green beans to make Mom happy.

I want to live where simple vices are just ways of life, where wars and rumors of wars are tempered with music from attractive people that smile a lot and like each other and say everything right the first time and don't have the same problems I do.

I want to live in a town where old folks who have seen more pain than I ever will take joy in simple pleasures and reveal their pain only through crooked smiles; where grandpas keep candy in their trousers and grandmas bake hams and turkeys and pies and cookies and wear old frilly aprons powdered with flour.

I lived there once.

a long
time
ago