Belonging.

            Belonging is one of the most important human concepts.  It is so completely universal, that I won’t bore you with all the reasoning.  I’m just going to assume you already understand why it’s important.

            I went for a drive today and popped some CCR in the cd player.  Those of you who spend a lot of time on the road know the importance of having good music, appropriate to your setting.  Around these parts, I prefer Bluegrass, mostly.  Down by the coast anything nautical, or anything with a haunting refrain played masterfully on one of those strange instruments I can never identify.  The closer I get to a city the more I need classical.  Gordon Lightfoot and Creedence Clearwater Revival are always good bets.  Today was emphatically a Creedence day. 

            One of the first songs went something like this:

Put a candle in the window

For I feel I’ve got to move

Where I’m going I’ll be coming home soon

Long as I can see the light

            I remember lying on my bunk in January, 1996.  I was at Lackland Air Force Base for Ground Combat School.  Prairie Home Companion was on the radio, and a woman with a delightful voice sang that song.  Funny, I never listened to the words before until I heard it on that program.  It’s been a favorite ever since.  So today I was listening to it and thinking of belonging.  Not everyone is born where they belong, and there’s every chance that some percent of the population either belongs everywhere or doesn’t belong anywhere.  But I know where I belong, and always have.  Here’s part of the reason why.

            Out on Route 4 in Grafton, New Hampshire, is a small store/gas station.  I go there after church and sometimes when I’m just passing thro’ to grab a snack ~ usually something absolutely horrible for me, deep-fat-fried, and dripping with grease.  I love that stuff.  I’m a guy, so, yah, whatever.  I always get a smile when I’m in there, and people who have no idea who I am always stop and chat, find out how I am and what I’m up to.  And it isn’t that fake sort of “How are you today?” that you get at those big stores.  These people are always genuinely interested in what you are out and about doing that particular day.  Most of the little stores don’t have televisions, you see.  So they are glad to see you, and everyone always has something cheerful to say.  A week ago I was eating some wicked-good ice cream and waiting for them to fry me up something disgusting, and the lady at the fryer glances out from the back room and smiles.  She brings my grease-soaked bag up to the front and says, “Here ya go, Myric!” I walk out, smiling.  It’s a gorgeous day.

            Now, something you should know is that this store is a Mecca for motorcyclists.  They come from all over, on their way to someplace else, and stop for fuel, greasy food, and ice cream.  And they are never from around here.  My first experience was a couple weeks ago right before Bike Week up at Laconia.  A bunch of dirtbillies from Ohio pulled in on bikes that couldn’t pass any sort of noise ordinance inspection, and they ask me where they were…

            …I went local on them:

Them: Where we at?

Me: Route 4.

Them: Yah, but where at on Route 4?

Me: Grafton.

Them: Ah. Where’s that?

Me: Where you trying to go?

Them: Laconia.

Me: (pointing east) It’s that way.

Them: Umm… thanks.

Me: No problem.  Any other questions?

Them: Yah, where are all the "gentlemen's" clubs around here?

Me: None around here.  Don’t think there are any in the entire state ~ folks tend to go to bed pretty early around here.

They stared at me… then left…  Life is good.

So, back to last week, I’m standing on the porch with my ice cream and my fried pieces/parts of what was perhaps… um… I wanna say… chicken? and I hear this loud, annoying chatter.  They are semi-old people, sitting on the porch of the store, eating, drinking, and being obnoxious.  I look at their motorcycles: Honda Goldwings, mostly.  Quiet bikes.  That’s something, at least.  Indiana plates. I was exiled to Indiana for quite some time, before returning home to New Hampshire.

Not to say that folks around here aren’t loud and obnoxious, but there aren’t really enough to be a bother.  I live in what most would consider a city, of sorts, and it’s dead quiet here by 8.oopm every night.

Belonging isn’t necessarily a notion of geography, altho’ topography can definitely play its part.  Some people have a terribly romantic view of New England, and there is certainly that.  The scenic beauty, the picturesque villages, the Autumn colors, the Spring mud.  But there tends to be a lot of shoveling to do, and the state animal of New Hampshire and Vermont is the wild pothole.  But I’ve only very rarely met anyone who was unhappy living here, and it wasn’t the climate and the bugs that chased them away ~ it was the fact that their souls and personalities were not geared correctly to thrive here.  Many come here after reading Robert Frost, but Frost was an idiot.  Around here, if there’s a road no one takes, chances are pretty good everyone’s got a darn-good reason not to take that road.  Being a Yankee isn’t something you can just fall into ~ one must be born a Yankee, regardless of the part of the country in which someone is born.  Someone from California can be born a Yankee.  Someone from Florida can be born a Yankee.  Heck, someone from Indiana can be born a Yankee!  I know at least one, personally.  But it takes a special breed to belong here.  Being a Yankee, and belonging here, is by no means a matter of birth ~ it’s a matter of mind and spirit, and a good, sturdy mix of romanticism, playfulness, stoicism, and wonder.  It’s an odd, often contradictory mix, but we’re an odd, contradictory people.