119. MY HOME TOWN 1965

 119.

MY HOME TOWN 1965

The one-room library shared shelves with the grocery
in the town where I grew up, dog-eared books
behind tidy rows of canned peas and lima beans.
Town elections were held there, too,
until the year the judges came up three votes short;
the butcher found the missing ballots under the bologna.

Grandpa bought us boxes of Fudgesicles at Gordie's
on the corner, where television repair, hardware and cafe all
squeezed together behind the same creaky screen door.
Next was the Pink Pony Motel, five small bubble-gum cottages,
their time-worn patina faded to palest seashell pink.

Down the block was the newspaper office
owned by a Quaker family of conscientious objectors.
Bud, well-lubed mechanic at Boyd's 3-Pump out on the highway,
kept Mom's Chevy clunker humming year after year.
Last came Our Savior's Lutheran where the kindly
minister preached on Sundays with pious determination.

A child, I loved growing up there.
Then I turned seventeen, and couldn't wait to leave.
Wasn't anything to hold me in that tiny, one-stoplight-life.

*comments welcome