The whole way down my friend and I solved the world's problems - discussing politics, religion, finances, healthcare, and (especially) parenting. I don't know why the UN can't seem to get it together. We pretty much had everything figured out before we even got to Kansas City, even while having to hand back kleenex and snacks at regular intervals. Maybe that's it - someone needs to bus up all the delegates and make them ride across country until they get to that mellow, silly stage that occurs about three hours in.
I don't know what it is about road trips that makes people so goofy. It's a bit like being drunk, I think, but with less risk for hangover. It helped, for us, that we shared common memories from way back then, and still have much in common today. Every mile we drove away from our homes took us a mile closer to home, so to speak. The drive there may have only taken ten hours, but we arrived twenty-five years younger and in a whole different world. It was, truly, a trip down memory lane.
Lee Ann and I are Okies from Muskogee. Merle Haggard crooned about being proud to come from a place with such inherent tradition, simplicity, and changelessness back in 1969, and I get it. Muskogee, Oklahoma wasn't buying into the gyrations that the rest of the United States was going through then, and it isn't today either. The store fronts may have changed, but the heart hasn't. Somehow time really does stand still in that small southern town, and even more so forty-miles to the south, in the even sleepier hamlet of Eufaula - our home town.
I've always found it strange that when I tell people I grew up in the South, they reply, "Oh, Oklahoma isn't really the south." Seriously? It's really hot, and people talk funny. Doesn't that qualify? Granted, Oklahoma was Indian Territory during the Civil War (another common indicator of whether or not people consider a state 'southern' or not), but I went to Dixie Elementary, and our high school was called Jefferson Davis. See - southern to the core. Plus, anyone who's ever been there from here can attest - it is different. It's the South.
When I first got there, I was greedy for all the sights, and sounds, and memories this little town held for me. I saw places that I thought I had only dreamed, but now they stood before me in the thin, fall sunshine in all of their solid glory. They really were real! The experience was at once unnerving and comforting - a bit like finding your keys right where you just got done looking. You're glad to have them, but still somehow a bit perplexed. Each twist in the road and blooming flower triggered a new sensory overload. My brain was like a pinball machine - lighting up in dusty, forgotten corners. Experiences and memories welled to the surface, clawed their way to the front of the crowd, burst into the room - each singing and hollering excitedly at being validated and proven true. But, the best part was hearing the voices of my home town again.
My cousin (whom I used to live next door to, and haven't seen in a quarter of a century) sat across the table from me and related a story about being surprised by something, and said she, "... 'bout fell out on the floor." My friend's dad greeted us with a grin as we pulled up in his driveway and apologized for not being able to "hug us around the neck" because he had "greazy hands". I got called darlin' and honey and sugar more times than I can count, and each one was like a lovely embrace. It felt good to hear 'fixin to' and 'ya'll' in regular conversation, and I could have spread those deep, smoothy, buttery accents on a piece of homemade bread and eaten it for breakfast. I may have been only six when we left Oklahoma, but a southern drawl will always be a favorite lullaby to me.
But, all things must come to an end. Even in the midst of being comfortably enveloped by my own childhood, and even with as much as things really had stayed the same, I realized they were different. Or, more accurately, I was. Iowa is not Oklahoma. The North is not the South. There is a distinct difference - culturally, economically, socially. I treasure my memories from there and the way that it colored my personality. I love to tell the stories, hear the accents, hug the people, eat the food. I appreciate more than words can express that there is a place where I can go and step right back into my perfectly-preserved past, but I was also very glad to get back into the van and make the ten hour drive back to my future.
Having already solved the world's problems on the way down, Lee Ann and I let our exhausted brains have free-reign on the drive back, and got really silly. Somehow every road sign was comment-worthy, and every billboard was hilarious. Desperate to document the entirety of our trip, I took photos of the inside of the van, the tollbooth at the turnpike, and even of the girls doing jumping jacks at a rest area. (I told you we got silly.) Scattered amongst our giggles and snorts we processed our time in Oklahoma together. What had been good. What had been surprising. What had been difficult. At one point, after hours of talking, a moment of silence settled over the vehicle, and we summed up our shared history and trip the same way - we're glad we came from there.
We pulled into home just after suppertime and smiled as a gaggle of children poured out of the van to hug the two waiting daddies. The sights, sounds, and smells around me didn't arouse the same electric thrill of rediscovery as the ones in Oklahoma had, but familiarity sure feels good too. I hugged my husband, rushed my tired children into our waiting car, and waved goodbye to my friend - who was already engaged in doing all the same things herself. Going back to our shared childhood home together had been a wonderful trip, but coming back home was the best thing of all.
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