Every hometown seems inexorably linked with each person's state of mind. Those of us with positive memories of family and friends where we were born naturally perceive it in that light, a cherished physical location key to who we are as adults.
Events that helped shape and influence us as impressionable youths can seem as if they happened last year. It's the magnetic influence of recollections that often summons us back to our roots in search of what is comfortably familiar. Author Thomas Wolfe, in his 1940 novel You Can't Go Home Again, said in that respect that since we can't relive our lives, we're wise to push ahead through what remains.
Yet I've found in the past two years that it is possible to recapture much of the joys and wonderment of decades past.
During my years in Springdale and Fayetteville between 1995 and 2015, I watched those communities explode in population until I decided the time had arrived to head 70 miles eastward back to my Ozarks hometown of Harrison.
There's a legitimate reason why Jules Loh, the late great feature writer for the Associated Press, years ago passed through Harrison and was taken so deeply with the people and the beauty of the community that he wrote a national story referring to Harrison as the quintessential American town. That was when its population hovered around 8,000. Today it's edged to 13,000.
The motivating force behind my decision to go home again came at my uncle's funeral. John Paul Hammerschmidt was laid to rest beside his wife Virginia at Maplewood Cemetery on April 1, 2015. Seated beneath the family tent, I could see the graves of my parents and grandparents in the same family plot.
In those moments it struck me, after living and working on both coasts and in six major cities, to return and live among my memories and friends from youth, many of whom either already had returned from their own national sojourns or never left.
Actually, the friends I'd made from Fayetteville to Bella Vista thought I'd gone quite bonkers: "You're moving from all this area has to offer to, to Harrison? Really!"
I didn't expect them to understand. These kinds of life choices can't be adequately explained to others' satisfaction. There's just too much deeply personal involved.
Since returning, the decision has been repeatedly validated. Not only can I be anywhere in Harrison within six minutes by taking residential streets across the hills, but there is a familiar serenity here best felt in smaller and average-sized communities. The constant drone of commuting metropolitan traffic has been replaced by the birds and insects relating from the trees. Life downshifts in many ways.
There are smaller-town charms to absorb. The city tests its emergency siren each day at exactly noon. Chimes regularly ring out from the shaded downtown square, home to an historic, three-story brick courthouse and gazebo. It's unheard of to go anywhere from the cozy Townhouse Cafe on the square where our morning coffee group convenes daily, or to the home-owned pharmacy a block away where clerk Betty calls everyone "angel," or the farmers market and Shirley's remarkable homemade baked goods, without encountering a handful of friends.
Just off the square, popular Lake Harrison along Crooked Creek spans more than a half-mile, encircled by a serene park, children's playground and a walking trail. Should I feel the urge to reel in a few smallmouth, this finest brownie stream in the South meanders through and outside town for more than 20 miles. I can be, rod-in-hand, wading to the plaintive wails of a red-tail hawk looping overhead in fewer than 15 minutes. The Buffalo National River is 30 minutes from town, as are Bull Shoals and Table Rock lakes.
The sense of community pride, buttressed by deeply instilled values and spiritual fiber, is stronger in Harrison than any city I've known. This, after all, is called God's Country.
On fall Friday nights when thousands of townsfolk fill the bleachers at state-of-the-art F.S. Garrison Stadium, the exploding skyrockets inform those still in their recliners each time the Golden Goblins score.
I enjoy movies and still don't miss many since Harrison has an eight-screen AMC theater sandwiched between the Tractor Supply and Fred's Dollar Store.
I also appreciate good food, and the varied list of restaurants for a town this size is impressive. If I'm still dissatisfied, Branson, 30 minutes away, has everything else, including world-class stage shows and outlet mall shopping. Springfield is only an hour's drive up U.S. 65.
But by far what's reassured my decision is the wide circle of new and lifelong friends who gather frequently for meals and socializing, often on someone's back deck. The enriching relationships include the group of fellow senior golfers at the country club who gather twice weekly to administer strokes of sarcasm and good-natured teasing.
So yes, one can indeed go home again after decades. And I still occasionally head up the hill to spend time with family and friends resting eternally in Maplewood.
The secret to sorting the present from memories of the way we were is to realize we create the way we are together today just as we did before, which also is destined to quickly become the way we were.
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Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 09/19/2017