Tuesday, 16 November 2010 02:47
Sarah Plain & Tall. Barges carrying freight down muddy rivers. The Oregon Trail. Riverboats & Mark Twain. The smell of drying tobacco. Banjos. Hoop skirts. Gymnastics. Tiny pots made of clay. Collecting and cateloging rocks. 4-H. Playing Pioneers. Essay contests. Church Christmas Programs. Civil War reinactments. Traveling in an RV around the country. Reading and re-reading the small town library's collection. Writing poetry. Classical Guitar. Playing beneath bright orange fall trees.
Sometimes my childhood feels so far away - like it happened in a different time or place. Truth be told, it was slower than most. Brought up in a small town, homeschooled and sheltered in the arms of church and family. I didn't know very much about this great world. But I knew about it's history. I grew up hearing stories and living the past through music, enrichment classes, tours of Boonsboro, the "Butler Turpin House" daycamp every year. I could churn butter, milk a cow, load and clean a Kentucky Long Rifle, gather eggs, carve an arrowhead, identify edible plants, and hike for miles. And every summer I'd sit in silence and soak in the music of our outdoor folk music festival - Point in Time. There, at the park on the point where the Kentucky River meets the Ohio River, in a tiny town called Carrollton, Kentucky, songs and stories came alive. I learned young the power of storytelling - the way our written and spoken words have the power to live long past our own lives. It was at this young age, in this old place, that I realized our stories must be told.
I don't often reminisce about my childhood. Now, jaded, I sometimes think I was too sheltered, too ill prepared for life outside that bubble. Sometimes I think I was always hurt, always angry, always trying too hard to live up to too hard standards. But I wasn't. I was often at peace.
When I'm streaming Pandora, songs by Peter Bradley Adams sometimes make their way onto my speakers. And even though he often sings of the city, he somehow resonates with everything I remember about my tiny town and small childhood.
And suddenly, as the songs hit my ears I am nine again - sitting on the banks of those dirty beautiful rivers listening to the soul-searing songs of Steve Smith and Kevin Stonerock and the stories of the furtraders and riverboat men whose dreams took us west.
