Published: May 16, 2008 04:41 pm            

You actually can go home again

They say you can’t go home again. Unfortunately, I think they may be wrong. A few weeks ago I went back to the place of my childhood. I am sure you are familiar with it. If you ever heard John Mellencamp sing about growing up in a “Small Town.” If you ever saw the movie “Stand by Me.” Or if you ever watched “That ‘70s Show” or “The Brady Bunch,” then you are familiar with my hometown.

New Castle was a little bigger than a town but still smaller then a city with all the luxuries you needed. We had a JC Penney, a Kroger, and a few big box department stores. Life was really exciting when we got our Burger King. As a teenager we couldn’t figure out why corporate America would choose to put such a small restaurant in our booming metropolis. Turns out they were smarter than we were, as my hometown has slowly leaked people for the past 20 years.

While most of Central Indiana has grown rapidly to the north, west and south, New Castle and the small towns to the east have struggled. Factories have closed and the economy has struggled keeping up with the realities of the 21st Century.

This made for a very sad trip down memory lane. I was able to go by my boyhood home only to find that the current owners have not put quite the premium on home ownership that my family did. It seems like little things such as peeling paint and rotting wood are not quite as concerning to them as they were to my parents.

Unfortunately, the rest of the houses in my old neighborhood appear to have met a similar fate. It is just a shame to see 100 year old houses start to decay, especially when the vast majority of your childhood memories took place in and around them.

Since this part of the trip wasn’t doing a lot to cheer me up, I decided to check out some of my other old hangouts.

I went by the Little League fields which look exactly the same 25 years after I played my last game there. All the way down to the signs in the outfield. It was there that my coaches tried to explain the intricacies of the suicide squeeze. I, on the other hand, was more interested in the free soda and candy after the game. Did you know that when you mix all the flavors from a fountain machine in one glass it is also called a suicide? Life really was very simple back then.

My last stop was a trip back to the high school. Now I really, really, really did not like high school. I didn’t enjoy the drama, the cliques, or the deep insecurity about whether the cute brunette in my sociology class would go out with me.

Surprisingly, when I go back, I have a desire to see all my old teachers (even the ones I didn’t like) and hear about all my old classmates (even the ones I didn’t like.) I think it is almost a sociopathic compulsion to want to twist any and all my memories to make them seem pleasant. I do remember that when I lived in New Castle I desperately wanted to get out. Now that I have been out for 20 years, I have a deep yearning to stay connected.

I guess the real truth is that no matter how much you believe that the grass will be greener on the other side of the street, there is always a special part of your heart reserved for the place that shaped who you are.

Eighteen years in a small Indiana town taught me the importance of friends and family. That businesses should look out for their customers because they are also their neighbors. That doing right is vital because you never know if there is someone watching you. And most importantly, as much as we like to believe our lives are unique and special, there are thousands of people in hundreds of small towns just like ours.

And most of them are anxiously awaiting the day they can get away, move off, and settle down in another small town just like theirs.

— Kirby Kirkpatrick is a freelance writer and co-owner of Success Express in Plainfield. He may be reached by e-mailing to kirby@successexpressmp.com.

        

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