•You Know You’re From …
Posted By janice on August 8, 2011
In the past week, a new phenomenon has popped up on Facebook, and numerous pages devoted to hometowns, usually beginning with “You Know You’re From (Hometown).”
My hometown of Elgin, Oklahoma is no exception, and a classmate created the “You Know You’re from Elgin, Oklahoma” page. I’ve been reading and posting comments for the past week, and many of the comments have brought back memories of living life in a rural small town where everybody knew each other.
Reminiscing not only brings up long forgotten memories but holds a mirror up to yourself. Like it or not, you see how you were influenced growing up. So, here are a few things I’ve realized about my life as a small town girl.
Dang, I Was Sheltered. More like locked up! Mom and Dad kept us kids on a tight leash so we weren’t allowed to attend parties, and we didn’t dare to sneak out of the house like we heard other friends did. Although I heard a few things about my classmates were up to (trashing hotel rooms, getting drunk, etc.), I didn’t learn about most of it until after I had graduated.
Mom and Dad were all about school so our jobs were to attend school, get good grades, and go to college. Those were our missions. I was such a Nervous Nellie about breaking rules that it was hard for me to do something “bad.” There were moments when I thought Adam Ant’s “Goody-Too Shoes” was about me. It could have been.
I remember spending the night with my friend Lori, and we wound up “cruising” in a neighboring town. I was a nervous wreck the entire time. Yeah, I was a big ol’ nerdy weenie. I also had no interest in drinking since I thought alcohol tasted terrible. I didn’t even like to drink sodas until college when I discovered the magic elixir Diet Coke helped keep me awake to study. Did I mention that I was a big ol’ nerd?
Reading the stories people are posting on the Facebook page have served as a reminder that I didn’t get out much. On one hand, I probably saved myself a huge amount of grief, and on the other hand, I briefly wondered if it made a difference to miss out on stuff. I believe all of the things I’ve experienced – good and bad – made me the person I am today, and I decided a long time ago that I can’t spend time on regret.
Friends for Life. My friend Jamiesue and I met in Head Start, and my friend Bert and I met in kindergarten. We’ve been friends ever since, and we’ve seen each other through good times and bad. At our high school graduation, those of us who had been together since kindergarten were asked to stand up. It was really amazing to see how many of us there were. We probably took it for granted.
Facebook has allowed me to connect to former classmates, and it’s been fun talking to people online. It’s always interesting to see what people are up to and who has kids and grandkids. Of course, I don’t know how people my age are old enough to be grandparents since I’m not old enough to have children yet. In a way, all of our old friendships have become new ones because of Facebook.
The Things You Learn in Small Towns. You learn quite a few things growing up in small towns. Elgin, where farming and ranching are still king, has grown a great deal since I graduated in a “big” class of 75 people. We learned about life, love, death and everything in between. I also learned the difference between bulls, steers and heifers from Scooter Mitchell while riding the school bus. My parents seemed amused when I recited the differences at dinner.
My class – the Class of ’86 — lost two of our classmates by the time we graduated, and I’m sure those losses shaped our psyches more than we realized at the time. Growing up, it’s one thing to lose your grandparents, but it’s so hard when you lose a peer, who’s a vibrant teen-ager just beginning to live.
Back then, the junior high and high school were in one building, and I always have appreciated my teachers and our librarian who were always there to offer encouragement and guidance. My teachers, especially Pamela McAdoo, were the first ones who nurtured my writing interest.
In high school, I took four years of Home Ec and was a member of the Future Homemakers of America club. When I became a professional organizer, I realized it really wasn’t a stretch for me. Those organizing roots began in the Home Ec classroom where we studied interior design, cooking, sewing and other similar areas. I never became a seamstress like my mother, but I can make a pillow and hem stuff if I had to.
My Religious Roots. I grew up Catholic in a town where a majority of citizens were Baptist, and when I moved to Galveston, Texas, after college, I was stunned that the island had six Catholic churches. Growing up, I used to think mixed marriage was between a Catholic and a Baptist.
The Catholic churches in Elgin, Sterling and Apache made up the parish. It always amused me that Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was at 9 p.m. Midnight Mass was followed by a party in the church hall.
As an adult, I came home for Christmas one year to discover a new priest who thought Midnight Mass should actually be at midnight. Attendance was down. There must have been complaints because the following year, Midnight Mass was back to the old time at 9.
You Can Take the Girl Out of the Small Town …
Even though I grew up a small town girl, I consider myself very much a city girl these days. While friends are buying and building homes out in the country, I’m entrenching myself deeper in city life. When I bought a house, I wouldn’t even consider the suburbs because that was too far out of the city for me.
But no matter where I go and what I do in my life, those years in Elgin have kept me grounded.
Comments