Going Home Again

A few years ago I decided I needed to read some of the classics of American Literature. One of the first books I chose was Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again. I plodded through the book…I mean PLODDED. Despite the Southern themes, I did not identify. You see, I find that I CAN go home again and again…and it’s almost as though forty years have not passed at all.

We just returned from my stomping ground…Indianola. There was a party this weekend for my friend Ellen’s son – also my god-son – and his bride. Maybe it is just an Indianola thing…but it’s always like a big family reunion. Lots of hugging, lots of catching up …telling old stories and reveling in the easy conviviality of being among friends…the kind who share your history, who know you inside out and love you anyway.


We woke up on Saturday morning and I gave Charles a tour of my home town, winding through neighborhoods, visiting the building that once housed my daddy’s business, the house where I grew up and more. I pointed out the B.B. King Museum; we ate lunch at The Crown in downtown Indianola and stopped by the cemetery to check on my parent’s graves on our way out of town.


No matter how the years fly…no matter how long I call somewhere else “:home,” nothing is ever “home” in the way Indianola always will be.