The Boomerang Effect

By Marty Smith
Country Boy Casserole


It is a common theme among jaded corporate types, stuck in a rut, staring down the cold reality of middle-age: "When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get out of there. Now, all I want to do is get back home."


I'm not sure it's as much about location as it is the prospect of simplicity, the foggy recollection of a wistful youth bursting with promise and devoid of professional or financial stress.


It's about recapturing a moment when a smile from a girl buckled your knees and nearly bowled you over with butterflies. It's about rolling down the highway with your daddy in that ol' blue Ford pickup truck at dusk, windows down, the cab brimming with the smell of fresh-cut hay and a fresh-lit Marlboro Light.


It's about following an old John Deere down a rural route at 20 mph, and being just fine with it. It's about the sweet disappointment that accompanied the conclusion of the Dukes of Hazzard, and the dreaded Dallas theme song that signaled bedtime.


I think about that life often. For 22 years I lived it.


I was raised in rural Southwest Virginia, deep in the New River Valley in a farm town called Pearisburg. Just outside my front door was a respite-leg of the Appalachian Trail, where just up the hill and around the bend weary hikers found a bed and a meal at the Catholic church.


Pearisburg in the late 80's and early 90's was the simple life. There is tremendous richness in simplicity. We had it made. But like most kids we had no concept of our blessings. Brad Paisley sang it well in "Letter to Me" -- "at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night."


In small towns all over this country, fall Friday nights are magical, the social event. Pearisburg is no different. In fact, if a robber rolled into Pearisburg on a Friday night in October, he'd have it pretty good. The place is a ghost town. Every former and current Giles High Spartan from Newport to Eggleston to White Gate to Staffordsville filled Ragsdale Field for the Fellowship of the Vicarious Ones.


And most of the participants left their front doors unlocked.


We had a stop light and a Pizza Hut, and the two-mile middle-school-to-Hardee's-and-back loop around town was the track we cruised for hours on-end in search of entertainment, by way of prayers that any cute girl as bored as we were would pay us mind.

My momma cooked dinner every day, positioned the place-settings at 5 p.m., and we sat as a family every night at 6. We ate pot roast and fried okra and corn-on-the-cob as Dan Rather told us what was going on in places we couldn't find on a map.


Speaking of Rather, he may as well be a member of my family. I saw him every day of my life for as far back as I can remember, weekends not withstanding. On Saturday and Sunday we welcomed Bob Scheiffer into the house. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and the Oak Ridge Boys and The Judds and Reba were all part of the family, too.


I was oblivious, couldn't see past the stop sign 100 yards from my driveway, literally or figuratively. Sure, I had big dreams. But in the midst of the small town life, big dreams seem unachievable. They're not. I'm living proof. I always wanted to be involved in professional sports, and here I am.

I am blessed beyond belief, and remember daily to appreciate the faith and experiences and relationships that built this life.

But as I ease through airport security checkpoints from coast-to-coast each week, I often think back to those Friday nights in Pearisburg, after a win and down on the riverbank with my buddies, when the biggest question facing me was whether that smile in the hallway would lead to a kiss.