Country folk…they like to laugh at you…not with you. Yet they weep with you when you are in pain, celebrate with you when your cup over floweth and live side by side with you as you achieve your right of passage through the Labyrinth of Life…well, mostly.
City folks are fine to be sure (LOL) and to be respected for all those tedious hours spent on the highways and byways of life…alone… as they fight the traffic to and fro their particular zoos, the Boss at work, the Big and Little Bosses at home and all of the complexities that accompany the Urban Jungle…Deep within, so many city hearts yearn for the Simple Life, where cows moo, roosters Cockle-Doodle-Doo and even Skunks don’t smell as rancid.
And so that is what led The-Boy-Next-Door back to his roots….to the idyllic days of running through hay fields, swimming in the bay, fishing in the creek…away from the big, bad city, even if it meant moving back to the town where his Matriarch Mama lived…no denying, she was full-tilt… she totally amused yet dismayed the Country folk who had to breathe the same air as her, shop at the same stores, attend the same church…you get it…got it...
Matriarch Mama was hard-core-right-wing-no-nonsense serious….so serious the country folk swore they had never seen her smile…in her life…even as a baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager, an adult, not even as a Senior. Sure her life was tough….her husband died young and she had two young sons to raise… but she had a nice home, enough money to send her sons to University in the city….could have been worse….a lot worse… said the poor folk who sometimes scrambled for food to eat.
What the country folk hadn’t realized was Reality (as we know it) and The-Boy-Next-Door parted way, many moons ago, along the Sandbanks of Time. When he’d left for the City he’d had been quiet, kind of shy, said the Country folk….he’ll come out of his shell once he’s away from his Matriarch Mama……Well….Maybe or Not so much.
However The-Boy-Next-Door’s education was impeccable and when he moved back to his roots, he was quickly hired as a Chartered Accountant for an international company that had recently moved to the area….much to the dismay of the country folk who believed Mama and Poppa Shops, where you knew the owner, their parents, their parents parents….chain of command and right of way….don’t trust these Conglomerates, said the country folk…they’ll break your heart when they pack up and leave (and holy smoke, some 30 years later they did just that).
So The-Boy-Next-Door had a plumb position…much responsibilty…his Matriarch Mama was rightfully proud and boringly braggy….but as Momma says, the Country folk play the long game….wait for the other shoe to drop…time will tell.
Other locals who were hired by the company saw it coming….saw the cookie crumble…but there were only family doctors in the district…who had trouble diagnosing even pneumonia…mental health issues were way down the list of expertise…
First The-Boy-Next-Door whispered to himself, then talked to himself, then shouted at himself….then went silent….. some days. like a two-way radio, all chatter…some days all silence…until one fine bright Monday morning, he went to work, greeting everyone he saw with a big smile and a Good Morning…almost normal like. ….but he didn’t head to his office and take a seat….no he went straight CEO’s Office and told him…get up and get out….this is my job now….You’re fired (so ahead of his time…so Donald Trump and The Apprentice).
No, there was no gun involved. No, the CEO didn’t leave…he called Security and The-Boy-Next-Door got a drive to the local hospital who arranged to have him sent to a City hospital who were better equipped to understand how a lifetime of stress and whatever is in your DNA can eat away at your brain, no matter how intelligent and middle class you may be.
The-Boy-Next-Door never came back to live in the country…some people are just better suited to an Urban Environment… Sometimes the Country folk say…they feel…maybe if they had stepped in more when he was a kid….too late now…you know….but if only….
No, never forget where you come from…..Nor ever forget you are as your meant to be... Sometimes, it’s hard to be yourself in a small town …. Where people remember every thing they see….
(Paraphrase Kenny Chesney, John Mellencamp)
