My Hometown USA

My Hometown USA: Just One Word,Plastics AFI has gone to all the tr... : Just One Word, Plastics AFI has gone to all the trouble to give us a list of the top 100 memorable quotes from movies. Did I agr...

(Classic My Hometown C olumn) (published in Picayune Item) Have you ever received in the mail one of those catalogs that has all kinds of stuff for sale mostly items your grandparents would buy? I call it a grandma’s catalog because the merchandise displayed page after page is mainly items an elderly person would purchase, or has already, like girdles, hearing aids, and liniments. Granted, I am not that green behind the ears and will be in need of such items in the near future. One example is Dr. Leonard’s, a healthcare catalog which for some strange reason arrived at my door. Is someone trying to tell me something, like maybe I need to start stocking up on senior citizen paraphernalia? Am I sliding over the slope of the hill? You've seen these glossy catalogs which always specialize in undergarments, those body shape girdles to squeeze in what doughnuts have spread out. They got real full figure bras that fasten with dozens of reinforced hooks and in a...

I was country when country wasn't cool Country singer, Barbra Mandrel made the bold announcement in one of her major hits, “I was country when country wasn't cool.” At that time, Urban Cowboy’s popularity had mainstream teenagers wearing boots and dancing the two-step. It was cool at the moment, to be country, or at least dress the part. Like all fads, it faded and those who were really country  continued to be real and did not care about the fashion trends of the runways of American style. Lately I have noticed, a resurgence of being country has hit the closets of American teens again, as young, girly girls are wearing cowboy boots as trendy fashion statements. But it is what’s on your television screen that is driving the re-popularization of being country, redneck, or maybe more specifically, Southern, it’s the driving force of reality television. Sure, some of its pretty extreme and scary! Have you seen My Redneck Wedding on CMT? These are the kinfolks you want to re...

My Hometown USA For over a decade I have been writing a weekly newspaper column titled My Hometown Column. As the printed page begins to slip away, so does the printed column. I have threatened for a couple of years to turn my column into a blog, so this is my effort of procrastination. My hometown is not just a geological destination which represents my specific location and origin, but rather its a sense of being, a place that resides more in our hearts. It is something we all share, a hometown, a community, a place we call home, whether we live there in the present or in the past. My journey has brought me miles away from home. Yet, as the world has shrunk, our nation is in itself a hometown. I have a social media hometown, via Face Book, Twitter, or plain email. We discuss the weather, the local gossip, who died and who is in the news as if we were standing over a giant water-cooler chatting about the subject du jour. Although my friends are in Seattle, back home i...