First – let me say that it’s Mother’s Day and I really miss my mom. She is such a great mother and while I can send her cards and flowers and gifts – nothing is quite like giving her a hug and telling her I love her face-to-face. I hope she knows just how special I think she is, and how thankful I am for her and for our relationship every single day.
Lee and I spent this weekend in Fitzgerald, going to a family reunion and visiting his mom for Mother’s Day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I don’t want to live in Fitzgerald, but I’m glad it still exists, unchanged. Saturday, we took all of 6 minutes to drive around the city. She showed us some new apartments and we ate at the new Zaxby’s, but other than that, things were status quo. We drove by my old house, and the only noticeable differences were the pick-up truck and boat in the garage where our cars used to be. I have plenty of good memories from the town, and going back always takes me back. But aside from my mother-in-law, there’s not much for me there now except for the memories. And it’s a different kind of life there, at a different pace from what I’m used to now, and I don’t think I’d like living there again.
I always think it’s interesting how different backgrounds yield such different perspectives on certain towns. I was talking with a women from another small town near Fitzgerald, and she said she’d visited Savannah recently and couldn’t stand all the traffic. Just thought it was horrible. Yet, to my Atlanta friends the cross-town commutes are nothing. Coming from a town like Fitzgerald, I think Savannah is practically teeming with culture. I overheard a co-worker saying she and her husband were looking to move to a bigger town because there’s nothing to do in Savannah – no culture, no restaurants, etc.
Well, no place is for everyone, but I happen to think Savannah embodies many of the best characteristics of the towns I’ve called home – for me.
On another note, it’s a little sad to see just how unchanged some things (or people) are. There was a guy I went to high school with – he was a year or two younger than me – that I remember well because he was in my church youth group. He was always fairly immature and invited trouble, but wasn’t an altogether bad kid. When I was in high school. there were many weekend field parties. Someone who lived in the country would invite everyone over, start a bonfire, and most of the gathered crowd would drink canned beer or wine coolers and throw things into the flames until early morning.
Surely people my age don’t still do that? Well, that kid I was talking about was at a field party recently and got drunk and shot someone. The person telling me the story wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not. Luckily, the other person was a good distance away and didn’t die. What is a guy in his upper-twenties (with a wife and child) doing going to field parties, and why does he bring his shotgun along? Idiot.