Pride and a Bit of Prejudice

Pride and a Bit of Prejudice

Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again,” and while, unlike his character, I don’t write about the warts and blemishes of my home town, I will concede it is hard to go home again. After a forty year absence, people change. Or do they? I draw upon memories of my school years in Ripley. By the age of 20 I had left the area, only to return for the annual visits to family. My experiences of my hometown were colored by a teenager’s perspective. After the roller rink closed down, after the movie theaters in Westfield and North East ceased to exist, there wasn’t much to do here. We hung around Meeder’s, gossiped and made plans for bright futures. We instinctively separated into groups: the “in crowd”, the in-crowd wannabes, the jocks and their girls, the brainiacs, the geeks, etc. You get the picture. There was nothing worse than wanting to be a part of one group and realizing you probably wouldn’t break out of the caste system you were in.

I thought things would be different when I got to be an adult. I thought people would move beyond the petty distinctions of their youth. I thought adults would be more willing to put aside their differences and work together for the “common good.” Sounds kind of like Utopia, doesn’t it? Or maybe I’m just being idealistic.

The nice thing about having been away, besides gaining a new perspective on the world, is my new appreciation of home when I came back. Of course there are problems here, and it’s not perfect, and not everybody cooperates and works together; but this town has potential. After the heyday of the 40s, 50s and 60s were over, and the rapid exodus of businesses began, people thought, and still do to some extent, that this town was dead. Au contraire! This town is coming to life again! Now I admit, I am an incurable Pollyanna, and I choose to concentrate on the good, but look around you. The veterans drew hundreds of people together in creating the monument in the center of town; the churches have programs to help everybody from the elderly, to the kids, to the down-and-out; the fireman’s auxiliary, Project Love, Community Development Corporation, the library, the scouts, and etc. etc. etc. are ALL working to make this a better place to live. Now it’s true that sometimes they work at cross purposes, and sometimes they are working for the same thing, but separately, but these organizations and more are clearly interested in making this town a better place. Healing the divisions of the past, groups of people are making herculean efforts to improve our lives. All we have to do is participate and take advantage of what’s being offered.

Now, there are people who will always point out the problems, but very rarely do they offer solutions. Unless we’re willing to actually DO something about the shortfalls of the community, perhaps we should be less judgmental of the people who are trying the best they know how to make improvements. There are personalities and ideas that just seem to clash, but I’m seeing progress here in my hometown. I’m working toward that progress in my own small way. Wherever you are, I hope you’re doing the same.

A thought to leave you: Work harder, be better, love more. If we all got what we deserved, we wouldn’t get much.