Small Town America and the 4th of July

“My Town” is a song by country music duo Montgomery Gentry that celebrates small town life in America. Their town is in the middle of Kentucky (Lebanon, population 5700). My small town (pop. 3500) is 50 miles from the Capital of the Free World.

As I watched an Independence Day fireworks show from a park in my town Saturday night, I thought of the lyrics in their song.

There's a "For Sale" sign on a big old rusty tractor.
You can't miss it, it's the first thing that you see.
Just up the road, a pale-blue water tower,
With "I Love Jenny" painted in bright green.
Hey, that's my Uncle Bill, there by the courthouse.
He'll be lowerin' the flag when the sun goes down.
And this is my town.

(Na, na, na, na, na.)
Yeah, this is my town.
(Na, na, na, na, na.)
Hey!
Where I was born, where I was raised.
Where I keep all my yesterdays.
Where I ran off 'cos I got mad,
An' it came to blows with my old man.
Where I came back to settle down,
It's where they'll put me in the ground:
This is my town.
(Na, na, na, na, na.)
Yeah, this is my town.
(Na, na, na, na, na.)
My town.

The story continues from there with images of a closed mill, a diner, and the crowds at church on Sunday. Life goes on, the kids grow up and have babies of their own. The storyteller buys the rusty tractor, paints it and proudly shows it off in his front yard. Even if you don’t like country music or small towns, you can picture the scene and recognize it as a part of the mosaic of lifestyles we celebrate every year on the 4th of July.

The Washington DC suburbs are slowly beginning to invade my small town, but the mentality here is still more rural than urban. Many of the families in the park last night are the children or grandchildren of farmers. The crowd in the park numbers in the hundreds rather than the tens of thousands who will witness the rockets’ red glare on the Mall in DC Tuesday night, but they are no less enthusiastic as they watch the modest fireworks show.

Even though I’ve been a city/suburb kid all my life, I have grown to enjoy small town Independence Day celebrations with their red, white and blue saturation of the senses. This one featured the sound of a local country-rock band, the scent of barbeque, the taste of home-made ice cream. The grand finale, of course, is the fireworks show. The rockets’ red glare. It doesn’t get more all-American than this.

I’m relatively private in how I show my patriotism. For me, soaking in a small town 4th of July connects me with those things that make me proud to be an American.