Anybody know the Kenny Chesney song “Back Where I Come From”? It’s an older one but one of his best, in my humble country-music-loving opinion 🙂 So, a couple weeks ago I spent two weeks of my life redecorating our community hall and this song kept playing in my head.
Why, you may ask?
Because our community hall is one of the symbols of “back where I come from.” See, I’ve been blessed to come from a long line of people who settled in southern Kansas during the Homestead Act of the 1870’s/1880s! And my family has been part of keeping up this community hall going back multiple generations. And as I was doing this-
I realized that not many people get to be so blessed!
I don’t actually know very many people who live in this area because, well, that’s where their family has always lived! You see it among the farmers (which is a dwindling population), but among my regular friends? A lot are transplants.
And it also occurred to me that this is one of the many jobs a farmwife takes on that is behind the scenes. My girls asked me, “Mom, why are you doing this???” as I was scraping wallpaper, patching sheet rock and repainting. My answer?
“Because I can and it needs to be done.”
That’s a farmwife’s theme in life! One that I learned as a farmgirl watching my mom and dad, my grandma and grandpa, my aunt and uncle. It’s a lesson that my girls are learning, whether they realize it or not. There are things that are just in your blood and keeping up the community hall is just one of the many things I saw and took for granted growing up.
It all goes back to “Back Where I Come From.” There are things that get passed down in an agriculture community that stick with you and define you. As I was painting, I was remembering all the times I’ve been in that hall- graduation parties, anniversary parties, baby showers, bridal showers, family holidays, community reunions, 4H meetings. This community hall doesn’t belong to just my family, but to our whole township out there. Many other people rent it and use it for those same things. It’s used kind of like a church basement, except that we don’t care what denomination you belong to. The one thing we all have in common is where we came from. And it brings many of us together for a variety of celebrations several times a year. It’s an honor to be part of the next generation preserving that.
That’s where I come from 🙂
Where do you come from? How has that defined you as an adult?
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