Social Life in the Sticks

It’s all about the rural American charm

My father and Grandpa Jim

I’m learning that the longer I’m away from Upper Michigan, the more I miss that small-town Americana, the roadside stops, sticky-tabled diners, and the dingy dive bars that can’t shake the cigarette smell twenty years after the ban. I even miss spending stupid amounts of time in the car because there’s a certain comfort in having your hands on the wheel with nothing but the open road and the radio. 

And don’t tell twenty-year-old me, but I also miss country music. 

When home in the summer these last years, I only listen to the Keweenaw’s COMPLETE Country Station, K-Bear 102.3 FM Houghton-Hancock. My brother climbs in the car and immediately reaches for the aux chord. I slap his hand away and crank up the Luke Bryan, trying to sing along to songs I don’t even know because the cold-beer-dirt-road-cute-girl-in-cut-off-jeans lyrics are usually generic and predictable, but there’s something in those melodies with a plunky banjo underneath that makes me want to put on a flannel, sip some whiskey, and head to a rodeo to meet a beautiful woman who drives an old Ford Bronco with multiple Country Girl themed bumper stickers. 

That’s the stuff I miss after spending a year on clean European public transportation, Spanish hip-hop blasting in my earbuds, and making sure my shoes and belt match my peacoat. 

Life is all about cycles, and when I’m in a routine for too long, like just about everyone, my feet get itchy. The best remedy for me is to travel and immerse myself in a different culture, and having been gone for nine years, I’ve been drawn back by the charm of rural America.