Where The Green Grass Grows

For those of you who know any Tim McGraw songs you'll know that I took one of his for the title of my blog post. 'Where The Green Grass Grows' is a song he recorded in '97 about how as a young boy he moved away from his small town into the city where he thought life would be better. A wider, broader world to explore inside of the constricting limits of a small rural town.

But as he describes it: "well I'm from a map dot, a stop sign on a black top. I took the first bus I could hop from there. But all of this glitter is getting dark, there's concrete growing in the city park. I don't know who my neighbors are, and there's bars on the corners, and bars on my heart."

There are literally hundreds of country songs out there that emulate this exact message. How they ditched their native small towns first chance they got and found out that the city's awashed in glitter and opportunity weren't so glamorous. Take Kenny Chesney's song ' In A Small Town' for example. In this particular song he describes small town life and how, like McGraw's song, he found that life constricting and oppressive. There are lyrics that stand out "Sometimes it was Heaven, sometimes Hell, kind've like church, kind've like jail, there's a water tower that says welcome to nowhere. Soon as I could I was long gone, my jeans were torn and my hair was long. But I can't believe I wanna go back there. To a small town."

Both of these songs speak about two young guys wanting to branch out - or break out - from their small town upbringings and finding that they can't do in their small towns But in the same breath, once they did reach the city they found themselves looking back. Like the last lyric in Chesney's song suggests "I can't believe, I want to go back there. To a small town."

Why is the pull of small towns so palpable in country music? It goes back to one of those 'root subjects' in the genre that has helped mold and shape it into something of a value that each singer holds. There are so many country songs that speak about the beauty, lifestyle and inimitable atmosphere that small towns have.

Perhaps because I love country music so much and love the country so dearly, I too fell victim to the allure of small towns. I have always wanted to live in one. I admire the closeness of neighbors, the amiable and personable people who live there and the quaint atmosphere. How, do you ask, if I have lived in the city my entire life, could I be so sure about wanting to live in the country. My answer? I am so sure of this because I know how I feel whenever I'm in the country. Whether it be a narrow, winding road leading past farms and pastures or helping out at a local horse rescue farm in Reedsville. Just as the country songs I mentioned above spoke about small towns being restrictive, I believe the opposite is true for me. I find city life to be restrictive. There is always a labyrinth of tumultuous noise layered in the background like a dozen tapes playing in a tape deck at once. Granted I live in a fairly quiet neighborhood and know a good deal of my neighbors, there's always one noise or another to steal away the silence I love so dearly in the country. Whenever I visit the horse rescue farm in Reedsville - Sunrise Horse Farm - I immediately stop and listen to the silence. Sometimes hearing nothing but birds chirruping blithely, horses grazing peacefully and the wind rustling through leaves of trees is the most beautiful sound in the world. At least to me.

Perhaps a writer, I cherish the countryside and its beautiful, serene silence so much because it helps inspiration come more easily and allows the words to tumble onto the pages free from distraction. Last Friday when temperatures were actually where they were supposed to be I took my laptop outside and worked on one of my stories on the patio attached to our garage. I'll admit, it was a nice change to type outside, but again...there was simply too much background noise to truly concentrate. I have always been inspired by the countryside and what it has to offer. It's undulating hills layered in thickly bedded fields like a dense patchwork quilt. Quiet farms scattered across the flattened ground like children's toys tumbling from chubby fingers and staying wherever they landed. Whenever I'm at the rescue farm I always hear peculiar bird songs that I wouldn't have heard otherwise had it been for the palpable silence. Granted I can hear many birds perfectly fine at my house in Sheboygan, it's not the same.

Speaking of the horse rescue farm, the lady who runs it, Mary Ellen Kiel, was talking to me about living in the city briefly herself when I mentioned to her my love for the countryside. She told me that for nine months she lived in New Holstein and hated it. She ended up moving back out into the countryside, where she knew she belonged.

That is how I've always felt, even though, as I mentioned before, I've never lived anywhere close to the countryside. Perhaps this ties into my last English paper about storm chasers where I said 'perhaps because of the absence of severe weather and tornadoes in Sheboygan it has helped fuel my passion for both.' The same philosophy may work into my love for the countryside. Because of the absence of it in my life - mostly, anyway - I have inadvertently developed a passion for it.

In many of my short stories, well all of them basically! :). The storyline and characters live in a small town. Somehow I have always felt most comfortable placing them there, as well as felt comfortable writing about it as well. As I mentioned before, I find the countryside very inspirational and contributing to my writing. Somehow I hope I can - in one form or another - live the life of the many characters I spin to life on the pages and find myself living in a quaint small town somewhere. I have always been the type of person who likes things small so to speak. A small neighborhood, a small church. A place where you can get to know every single person. A place where there's a single popular restaurant that everyone gathers for lunch and fills everyone in on small town gossip. Some of my stories revolve around a world like this and I'm more comfortable emulating small town life in them than any other story plot.

As you've probably noticed by now there are numerous contributing factors that fuel my passion and love for small town life and the countryside in general. Including magazines like Country Living and Country. Both of which I love. But regardless of what lies behind my passion, someday I hope to live...where the green grass grows.