There's a new page on facebook where people who grew up in my small hometown of Marshall can post their memories about growing up there. It's only been up for about a week and already has a following of nearly 700 people. Which is a pretty good turnout for a town that graduates less than ninety seniors each year and whose population has never topped 3,500.
And, I have to say, Marshall's coming off looking pretty darn good. Of the hundreds of posts, I haven't seen a single one that's negative. All the teachers across the generations are loved, the catholic priests are revered, the mushrooms are to die for, the food in the school cafeteria is tasty, and everyone who moved away misses the town and still thinks of it as "home." There are no memories of bullying in school, boredom at home, economic inequality, joblessness, break-ins, or worries about food being on the table. Nor is there a single mention of alcoholism, even though the town has as many taverns as churches. According to the facebook page, Marshall is the idyllic model of a small town--with happy families, rosy cheeked kids, no crime, no poverty, and no problems. Mayberry at its best.
Which is pretty much how I remembered Marshall too. That is, until I moved back for several years in my mid-40's and started doing public defender work and seeing an underbelly of the town that I never knew existed. Murders in Marshall? No way. A serious drug problem? I don't believe it. Child abuse and neglect? Not in my town. Crippling poverty? Not a chance.
But it was all there underneath those shady elm trees. And I'm pretty sure it was there when I was growing up--that there were a lot of kids who grew up in something other than idyllic conditions. I thought I knew everybody in town, but somehow I didn't know those kids.
Which all makes me wonder about the facebook site and the Pollyanna picture that it portrays. I suppose it's possible that people with really bad memories wouldn't be drawn to the site or wouldn't want to publicly post about them. But what about the smaller problems that can play havoc with a happy childhood? Is it possible that not a single person who was bullied in school has joined the group? Where are the memories of bad teachers, being the last one picked for the kickball team, loneliness, boredom, never getting off the bench in group sports, not having the quarter to get into the pool, the alcoholic cousin, the unemployed uncle?
It may be telling that nearly all of the followers of the facebook site are over 50, with a well-worn AARP card in their wallets. Maybe those 50 years are the time it takes for bad memories to fade and for the good ones to take on a prominence that they might not have always had. Maybe that's the time it takes for us to rewrite our memories in a way that deletes the bad times.
I kind of hope that's the case--that bad memories get overridden by good ones as we get older. It makes me feel better about the bad things I saw in Marshall, especially those involving kids. And it makes me think that there might actually be a silver lining to this whole aging thing--something better than my AARP benefits and the promise of Social Security--which isn't looking all that promising lately.
But I don't want to think about Social Security right now. And I don't want to think about how my own memories of Marshall were a little tarnished when I moved back. I want to read about that 2 cent carton of milk we all used to buy at school. And do you remember how much fun we had playing "Home Free All" late into the night? Sleeping in the back yard in tents? Walking barefoot to the pool every day in the summer? How we all knew everybody in town?
It really was an idyllic childhood. Or so I think.
