Jack Burns Lives!

The Greener Grass on the Other Side

Ever since I was a wee lad running for my life on the mean streets of North Memphis, I’ve fantasized about living in other places. My dreams have run the gamut, California, Mexico, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, The Lake District and to my latest interest, southwest Texas, just a bit above Big Bend. 

Never really thought about exotic locales like France, Prague or Berlin. Hawaii never interested me. Neither did Australia. Too many things that can kill you there, including those nasty Sydney Funnel Web spiders. They have huge fangs and actually attack. No thanks.

Yet, forty-six years after my birth, I remain about 18 miles from the place I was born. Much closer to home than most folks I know. 

There were two short excursions away. College (50 miles down the road) and a short stint in Jackson, Mississippi, which is actually just outside, right on the cusp, of my current bioregion. 200 miles south of my home.  And there were seven years in Knox County, Tennessee. Same state, different bioregion.

Reckon I haven’t ventured far and in doing so, in not moving around, I believe I’m doing a reasonably good thing. Staying put is in vogue, because it’s good for the planet. 

Orion Magazine just ran a short piece by Rebecca Solnit titled “The Most Radical Thing You Can Do.” It’s about place and staying in place. Interestingly, she quotes one of my favorite authors/figures Gary Snyder to begin the essay:

“The most radical thing you can do is stay home.”

True enough, but what sort of nation or planet would we have if no one ever moved? Snyder did his share of moving around, having even spent some time in Japan.  Born in California, as a child he moved to Washington and then to Oregon. Not bad. Pretty much all in the same general area. A short period was spent in Indiana, and I have to think that all of these experiences, especially the time in Japan, helped shape perhaps our nation’s greatest modern poet.

So gains are made in cultural diversity, but we lose things as well. We do affect the places we visit, as Hayduke mentioned in a recent comment about Marathon, Texas. Today, tiny Marathon finds itself under siege, beset by yuppies with too much money and ideas about what they want the place to look like. Marathon is holding its own, but over time, there is a danger that it could, as Hayduke points out, become another Moab or Telluride.  The original charm and simplicity is replaced by real estate tycoons and yuppies bringing their bad habits with them. 

Long lived local joints , where you can get a hot breakfast for under $5, a meat and three for lunch and see wind worn locals in Wranglers, dirty worn from work boots and Stetsons are replaced by some over priced bistro inhabited by a bunch of ex-execs in $500 Arc’Teryx jackets. 

You may counter that this is an improvement, and perhaps in some ways it is. Maybe this bistro serves locally grown organic food. Maybe these people bring new and needed local businesses to the area. But still, something is lost. 

I have a hard time seeing why you need a $15 breakfast instead of the one for $4.95. 

On a recent visit to Edna, Kansas, I got a first hand lesson in this. Shortly after arriving in town, it didn’t take long for me to realize I didn’t fit in! Saturday morning, I met my friend Dan, a long time local. He was dressed in comfortable, townsy attire, a warm flannel shirt, jeans and well-crafted, functional boots. A very Abbey-like ensemble. But here I was wearing a Marmot hiking jacket, Orvis snap button shirt and 1950′s re-issue square toed Justin’s. Both of us appropriately sported hats, his a more traditional look; mine more of a “backroad” style hat, fashioned by Col. Liddleton in my home state of Tennessee.

Dan looked authentic and like he belonged. I looked like a member of the Brokeback Mountain Fan Club.

Lesson learned.

The biggest gripe in towns like Moab and Telluride (Ridgway, CO is soon to follow) is what real estate speculation does to the community. Locals can’t afford to live there any longer. It’s a crime, pure and simple, for such things to happen, where small, close knit, long standing communities are ripped apart and destroyed by speculative growth capitalism. 

Perhaps the answer is covenants developed an enacted by the locals before the newcomers show up and ruin the place. 

I’m intrigued by two spots in southwest Texas. Marfa, which has around 2500 people and a bustling artist community and Marathon, it’s smaller, unincorporated cousin with around 455 souls. Both sit around at around 4000 feet and have vibrant, high desert ecosystems. Beautiful landscapes with an astonishing variety of flora and fauna. 

If I went there, I think I’d fully adopt the place and live as the locals live. I’d find the most efficient, affordable place that already existed and keep it in good repair. No need to build a new chateau in the desert. If Stetson’s were the attire du jour, I’d be wearin’ one. (It wouldn’t take much to get me and keep me in a cowboy hat.) 

I’d eat at the traditional places and have my eggs and bacon with the old timers. I’d beg to hear their stories, although they might not be willing to share ‘em with some upstart from Tennessee. I’d even play checkers on town square. Might even cut my hair.  

Why move to your dream locale and then try to change it? 

Why Marathon or Marfa? Small is better, I think. Safer, slower. A more cohesive community. You give up things but you gain more than you give up.  Both are vibrant, artistic communities. There’s open space, mountains, desert. Real old timers. A varied culture of American Indian, Mexican and Anglo. It’s a western version of Bedford Falls, and I’d sure prefer Bailey Savings and Loan over Citigroup.

The death of the small town, the death of real community, is perhaps our greatest loss in this country. It’s what makes nations great, the villages and towns were people depend on one another, often in subsistence communities. I remember my grandmother’s town, Marianna, Arkansas. What a special, little place it was back in the ’60′s. The town square was decorated for the Holiday’s, stores were open at night on the square, people knew and greeted one another. You could walk to the Methodist church and sing Christmas carols from her family home on Mississippi Street. A grand house my great-grandfather built with a big old wrap around porch rationally equipped with a swing and a glider. I clearly remember the rose tressel on the side of the house and the big old scary spiders that lived on the two story screened porch on the back. Grandpa’s chair. The grand piano and the sounds of people walking on the wood floors throughout a home that housed five generations. 

Talk about “place” and staying put….

And while I’m not a “believer,” I’ll readily admit that I miss the simple beauty of a small town Christmas and church services. The camaraderie and togetherness. Holding my grandmother’s hand as we walked into the church. 

As I return from lunch I glance over at the train tracks running from Collierville to Germantown. The tracks stretch onward from Germantown, my current home, to Memphis, the place of my birth, just a few miles down the road. It’s all in the Lower Mississippi Riverine Forest Province, just on the fringe of the Lower Delta. I survey the landscape, the houses, trees, people and the general typography of the place. In doing so, I realize this is home. It’s where I feel comfortable, despite all the problems. The racism, crime, kooky Christian extremists, Palin supporters, etc. I know the smells, the texture of the forest and the soil. I know the birds, the mammals, the reptiles and amphibians. I know the people and their history. I realize I am of those people, and that my family is deeply connected here. 

I realize that Marathon and Marfa are dreams. Fantasies. Places to visit and to embrace but this place will always be home.