"These are the towns our lives abandoned..."

A new friend of mine recently introduced me to the poet Charles Wright (thanks wm!). Wright is a native of Tennessee and the title of this blog post is a line from his poem, "Appalachian Farewell." I don't know if it's the fall weather, the poetry, the approaching holidays, or some other more hidden, subconscious reason, but I've been feeling a bit nostalgic recently.

This is where I grew up:





I think when you are away from a place for a really long time (I moved away almost 10 years ago and haven't visited in nearly 5), you have to revisit it emotionally and mentally to make sure it's real.

And to make sense of who you have become.





Anecdotally, when I googled "erwin tn images", the second picture that popped up was of a guy I knew from high school whose cousin was my across-the-street neighbor growing up. And the pic is of him posing with Hulk Hogan. I kid you not. Also on the first page of image results was the "famous" (or rather, infamous) photo of Mary the hanging elephant. The elephant thing is really insane. If you have a minute or two, read about it and experience a little piece of sick and twisted Americana.

Small. Fucking. Towns.