Essays From West of 98: 17
Asking and answering a question that's been lingering for two decades
Author’s note: I recently published a two-part essay (here and here) on strengthening the connection between our young people and our place, so that they want to be “from here.” Last week, I discussed the fallacy of lamenting “kids these days.” Today, I ask whether we can overcome our teenage reputations, with help from an all-time great Red Dirt band.
Are you always seventeen in your hometown? Back in 2002, the legendary Oklahoma band Cross Canadian Ragweed1 released a song that suggested you were.
Well once upon a time you had it all,
You let everybody down.
You're always seventeen in your hometown.
This song was released shortly after I graduated from high school and headed off to college. I aspired to return to Stamford, but I wasn’t sure where the world would take me. Obviously, I made my return and I’ve now been here for 15 years. This song accompanied me through college and law school, then back to Stamford to start a business, into community leadership, and starting my own family. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times, thinking about it excessively and pondering whether I agreed:
Running from your folks, running from the law.
Running from love, running from your fears, running from it all.
You keep on running boy,
You run yourself in the ground.
You're always seventeen in your hometown.
If you’re new to this song, and if it isn’t apparent from the lyrics shared so far, songwriter Cody Canada didn’t view this label as a positive. The song’s narrator is a disaffected adult who cannot seem to find their place in life or outrun the experiences of their youth. The cops mess with him because they can. A onetime crush remains at arm’s length. His purpose is unclear.
Well nobody is gonna miss me
No tears will fall, no one's gonna weep
When I hit that road.
My boots are broken, my brain is sore
From keeping up with their little world,
I got a heavy load.
Gonna leave 'em on just like before, I'm big city bound.
You're always seventeen in your hometown.
Happiness awaits in the big city. Or so he thinks. At the very least, it’s an escape from what seems to ail him in his hometown.
There was a period in my adult life where I believed you ARE always seventeen in your hometown. I theorized that this could be a good or bad thing, depending your experiences. As I’ve aged, I no longer agree with that theory. We do not have full agency over our life and the circumstances that create our reputation at that age. We also have limited control as to how others in town perceive us. Is that fair? Well, life is not fair. But is it true? If others view us as rowdy, a slacker, a nerd, or a goody two-shoes at age seventeen, are we committed (or doomed, as it were) to that perception forever?
I know people who have worked hard to overcome their teenage perception. Some have succeeded. Others have struggled. Why? Perhaps, the answer does not actually lie within us.
After two decades, I have my answer. Whether we are always seventeen in our hometown is ultimately the decision of a community. People may not realize they have this collective impact, but they do. Will they forever view us through the prism of a teenager they once knew, for good or bad? Or will they allow their perception to be supplemented by the adult that we become? It’s their choice.
This is a heavy theory. It places a burden on each of us to treat others and successive generations with kindness and understanding, lest we cause a person to feel branded as a perpetual teenager. Last week, I proposed embracing our youth and encouraging them to live life to the fullest right here in our rural places. They cannot (and mostly will not) do that if they cannot escape their perception at age seventeen. Instead, they’ll be big city bound just like Cody Canada’s disaffected narrator, and the local population will continue to dwindle.
Are you always seventeen in your hometown? Only if the community treats you that way. Living with a true sense of community, we can and should see people for who they are, not who they once were. We are complex, growing, and changing humans. We each have unique perspectives at every stage of life. Some eras in our lives are better than others. We can and should be encouraged to overcome our struggles. And at each stage, we are worthy of influencing our place and community for the good.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.
This is not the point of today’s newsletter, but to those of us of a certain age, the late 1990s/early 2000s explosion of the music we called “Texas country” and “Red Dirt” was a revelation. Today, this subgenre of country music has its own stations in many markets and has cross-pollinated with mainstream country, but in those days, it was a true underground experience to find this music on the radio, sometimes on a Saturday night specialty show, a newfangled “streaming” station online, or getting a spin during a request hour. Cross Canadian Ragweed and their peers blazed a trail that affected many of us and our love for music that resonates in our lives even today.