Romanticizing Rural America

I’m home visiting the farm in mid-August, when the sweet corn is perfectly ripe and the sun still stretches its long, sherbet fingers into nighttime. My mother is showing me the vegetable garden, “Looks like I need to pick beans again,” she mutters, and squats to the ground, her hands deep in a green bean plant. My parents started planting beans on a fence years ago, so the plants grow from the ground up, higher than my head. I start plucking the ripe beans, too, eating one for every three I toss in the bucket at my mother’s feet.

My father walks by and says, “Getting back to your roots, eh?” pronouncing “roots” like “ruts.” I smile, because it feels so satisfying to have my feet in the dirt of their vegetable garden, and I’m not sure they’ll ever know how good it is, even now, to come home.

Some people think that if you’ve seen one small town in America, you’ve seen them all. I fear that might be true; my hometown might be like all the other small towns scattered across the country, just with a different cast of characters. Mr. Wilson, the old gym teacher, is now the librarian. The daughter of our high school basketball coach went away to college, got married, and settled down across the street from her parents. Now, she has two little girls of her own and has taken over the head coaching job. Voting day takes place at the municipal building downtown, which also houses…