podunk, USA
I wrote this entry for one of my graduate classes today. We have a class blog, in which mostly people are just trying to impress one another and it is annoying. Sometimes it’s pretty fun, though, and my goal is to talk about things that are relevant as little as possible. Since I rarely talk about my personal life on this blog, I thought it would be interesting to post a little family history. And I still have no idea when I will have time to actually tend to this blog. I hate school. Please to comment?
My father grew up in a very small town in Texas called Cleburne. It’s about twenty-five minutes outside Dallas, and it is absolutely the most miserable place I have ever visited in my life. I used to dread taking family trips to visit my grandmother, aunts, and uncles (of whom I have fourteen on my father’s side) because entering Cleburne was like entering a foreign country. The rules as I knew them just didn’t apply.My father was born in 1941, three months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was raised in Cleburne, current population 29,050, with his six brothers and sisters in a two bedroom house right next to the train tracks. His mother, my grandmother, is currently 98 years old and living alone in the same house she’s lived in since she married my grandfather at 17 years of age. She has never been on an airplane and never traveled further than 50 miles from the place of her birth. All seven of her children live within 200 miles of her. Most of my paternal family lives in Texas because if they were to move anywhere else, the culture shock would probably kill them instantly.
I have never been to Appalachia, but the entire time I was reading Kathleen Stewart’s A Space on the Side of the Road, I kept picturing Cleburne, Texas. My experiences in small-town Cleburne, although no where near as dramatic as Stewart’s in Appalachia, are overwhelmingly similar to the cultural atmosphere that Stewart found “by the side of the road.” Cleburners have their own manner of speaking that is almost unintelligible to outsiders, inflecting their words with meaning and sound that was foreign to me as a child. I was always incredibly confused by the meaning of the word “drawers” whenever I visited my grandmother. A drawer to me was a place to store clothes or toys. A Cleburner firmly believes that “drawers” are the same as “underpants.”
But despite such petty examples, overall the feeling that I got from reading Stewart’s book was the same feeling I used to get while visiting Podunk, USA. Stewart writes:
“Imagine, in short, how culture in an occupied, betrayed, fragmented, and finally deserted place might become not a corpus of abstract ideas or grounded traditions, but a shifting and nervous space of desire immanent in lost and re-membered and imagined things. Picture the effort to track a cultural “system” that is “located,” if anywhere, in the nervous, shifting, hard-to-follow trajectories of desire and in-filled with all of the confusion and aggravation of desire itself. Imagine a world that dwells in the space of the gap, in a logic of negation, surprise, contingency, roadblock, and perpetual incompletion.”
This is Cleburne. A remnant of an old America that no longer exists. The town is poor and small. It used to depend on oil and farming, two sources of income that are dwindling now in the area. Beautiful farmland has been superseded by commercial structures, fading and becoming dingy with neglect. It is a place that still harbors the old seeds of racism and conflict. A place where people are aware that they should be tolerant, but just can’t bring themselves to comply. A place the young are constantly trying to escape from (my father married at 18 just to leave his mother’s house — the marriage failed, not surprisingly), and the old can’t bring themselves to leave. The gaps that Stewart talks about so often in her book are everywhere in my memories of Cleburne, a place stuck in a memory and tradition that the rest of the country has left far behind.
I really like this. Also, is that dead cows thing for real?
Thank you, and yes. I would not lie to you. Texans are a fun bunch of people.
This is probably the best written blog post I’ve read on the internet in quite a while. The fact that it was written for a class comes out. Kind of refreshing actually.
And yeah, like the last person said, do they really sell “dead cows” and call it that, and not “beef?”
Thanks :)
This is the opposite of the sci-fi post. It’s like… geo-re. (Geographical reality?)
There are a lot of Cleburnes out there. In all those little blank spots on the map where you’d assume there was just grass and hills or something. All those little in-between areas. Time has forgotten them just as readily as they have forsaken time.
That last part sounds like a country song.
I know this town. I grew up in it. It’s located just north of Dublin in Ireland. Which is why I live in New York. There are thousands of Cleburne’s around the world, they just don’t have someone like you to write about them this well, this smartly
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the nice comment!
Wonderful post. I think though that there is ample evidence that this old America does still exist.
Well, yeah, it still exists, but only in the stagnant places in the country. Small places grow their own identities and never leave them behind.
Wow. Nice to see someone else out there has the same view as me. I was born and raised in Cleburne and I managed to not only survive and escape, but I was also able to flourish thanks to my self-sheltering imagination (which turned out to be a double edged weapon as it also made me quite shy and timid) and then later in life, the internet fed my constant cranial needs. I absorbed as much culture as I could get my grubby little paws on, even in my earliest of years. I knew from the first tangible sentient thought that there was something terribly wrong with this place and it was keeping a great deal of knowledge from me, strangling my very being. I was always gasping for air. I yearned for interaction with people, books, buildings, and LIFE in general. I’m lucky that I did not escape by the means that most youth “escape” Cleburne, that being heavy drug use which is ironic in itself that it just strengthens their anchor there. I was very amused to see others so trapped in that cycle and know that it was the wrong answer. You could often find me smirking at others because I held all of the correct solutions, all the right cards if you will, and I knew that this town would be their lifelong destiny. Even though I hold such loathsome feelings for this little speck of dirt, it was rather nice to take a proverbial stroll down that memory lane. Much better than the real thing. ^_^
-Zaxxon Q Blaque formerly Brandon Nead Sharp of Cleburne Texas
(ZaxxonQ.com)
Hi, thanks for commenting and glad you enjoyed the post :)
Although somewhat well written, you have failed to understand Texas as a whole. The majority of Texas is in a bygone age. We Texans have and will always be different than others. I see you as not so much having a problem with a small town, but having a problem with the culture of Texas. Texas is mostly small towns spread out over a large area. Also, Cleaburne was built around the railroad and still employes Cleburnites to this day. Cleburnites speak with a Texan accent. When in small town Texas get used to it.
No, I like Texas. I just don’t like small towns. Every state/city has its own culture; that’s the point I was trying to make, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The other point I was trying to make was that small towns — because of their smallness — REALLY have their own culture. It’s almost a necessity. In my experience, it’s really hard to be an outsider in these places, even if the people you are visiting are friendly because it’s like visiting a foreign country. Unfortunately, being in Cleburne for me (having grown up in a very different environment) wasn’t very pleasant. I’m happy that some people enjoy small town life, and power to them. I just don’t happen to be one of those people.
The other, not so nice, side effect of (most) small towns — and my father and his family are living examples of this — is that both bad and good traditions tend to stick around. I love my dad to death, but he is a racist, and he will be until the day he dies. It was instilled in him as a kid by the culture he grew up in (due to various socio-economic reasons probably out of his control).
Thanks for taking the time to comment, and I hope I didn’t upset you too much.
I ate at that burger place! Great burgers.
Ha, good to know. I’ve never been.
I disagree with this post, I hate that you feel this way about a small town. And don;t get me wrong some things you said are true but as well some of your comments are false.
They may be false for you (that’s a good thing) but they aren’t false for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have written them. If your experience with small town life was a good one, then I’m happy for you, but it wasn’t that way for me or for my father. As for “hating” that I feel this way, I’m sorry? You don’t know me, so my feelings (which are based on limited experience, I grant you) shouldn’t really be affecting you this much. Different people experience things differently, and my experience has largely been negative. Just because you’ve (hopefully) enjoyed small town life at some point, doesn’t mean there aren’t others who haven’t.
I’m a Texan. I grew up near Cleburne. I now live in Virginia, but there are certain positive things about Texas culture that I still try to take with me where ever I go while leaving the negative things behind. On a recent show about the history and culture of Texas, one Texas historian commentator talked about one of those negative things, but he spoke of it as if it were a positive thing; he said that Texans like you if you can “make it”, but if you can’t “make it” they don’t want to have much to do with you. I call this social darwinism. Texas is also one of the most racist places I’ve been, but they think they can hide it despite how obvious it is. It’s like the 1000 lbs gorilla in the room on-one wants to talk about.
The positive aspects of Texas I take with me – I’m a liberal Jim Hightower type of Texan, and I speak my mind when I see something that just ain’t right (like Bush’s governorship). I have a boisterous sense of humor and I still like to wear my cowboy boots from time to time. I’m laid back and have a live and let live attitude; I welcome diversity as opposed to the “welcome to Texas, now go home” type of Texans.
This was a good post, Ashley, and it brought back some memories.
I was born and raised in Cleburne Texas and left at 26 yrs. old. My parents have been there in the same house for 35 years. They even have the same phone number I remember learning in kindergarten! I still live in Texas, but a much larger town, actually a city, 260 miles away. My mom asks me all the time to move back but I always tell her “no”. As a matter of fact, we had the conversation today. I told her that all my skeletons and demons are still there in Cleburne and will be forever. I love to visit my family but I am always glad to leave that place. It seems to never change and what few changes there are, are not good. My grandmother has lived there since the 60’s. She will never leave either. I told my parents that as soon as I am granted a certain amount of financial freedom next year, “I” will be getting them out of Cleburne. On a less invasive viewpoint of my home town, I do not have any regrets growing up there. I learned to appreciate the world outside those city limits.
Allen and Violet: Thanks so much for commenting. Just wondering, where are all of you guys coming from? I wrote this post three months ago!
LOL, they’re coming from me. ^_^ I was sent a link to this wonderful blog and I decided to share it on my FaceBook, Twitter, and MySpace. I hope you don’t mind. I’d also like to put a link up at ZaxxonQ.com, if that’s okay with you, since my first book deals with growing up in that… “colorful” little town
I don’t mind that you shared the link, but a lot of the people who are coming here are misunderstanding the intentions of the post. It was written as an academic assignment for an academic (objective) audience, and for people who are accustomed to critical self-evaluation. It wasn’t written as an ALL SMALL TOWNS SUCK ESPECIALLY YOURS post. I would appreciate it if you wrote some kind of disclaimer on your link. I don’t enjoy being attacked for my thoughts. Anyway, thanks for the traffic, and I hope you come back :)
Frak! >_< I'm sorry! Had I known, I would've done something to deter this. Well, I know it's not much but I apologize for the small minded people. I have edited the description on ZaxxonQ.com. I hope that will stop the attacks.
I have lived my whole life in Texas. Although not perfect, our small town feel in a big state is one of our best qualities. We are much more friendly than people in other states. We still smile at each other on the street. You don’t get that everywhere. Also, some of the greatest people have come from small town Texas. Our small town history is deeper and more rich than many other places in our country. We are a proud and independent people as well. Perhaps so many people are posting now, because now real small town Texans have found your little bash-fest of a blog. Grow-up, get a life, put your childhood issues behind you and apoligize to small town Texas. It isn’t nice to say bad things about a place you only visited and never lived in. Only a Cleburnite or true Texan should be as mean as you.
First of all, this wasn’t a “bash-fest,” it was a reflection on *my* experiences in one small town in Texas. I have acknowledged that my experience is limited, and that the last time I visited was when I was thirteen years old. Never once did I condemn anyone who chose to live in a small-town, I was merely expressing my own thoughts on the experience and why it was so difficult for me. I’m sorry that you generalized my comments to mean that I believe all Texans to be small minded, mean, and racist. That certainly wasn’t my intention. I think you should calm down, read my post again, and acknowledge that other people have a right to express their own experiences.
I’m very happy that you are so comfortable with your life and your identity and I certainly have no intention of trying to take that away from you. The intention of this post was merely to point out the nature of a small place using Cleburne as an example. In big cities with all of the diversity that comes from mixing large groups of people, local charm (and local prejudices) are mostly lost. That’s both a good and bad thing, just as it’s both a good and bad thing that they are *not* lost in smaller places like Cleburne. I have simply expressed my dislike of living and visiting in small towns but that by no means implies that I think they shouldn’t exist, that I think they are bad places, or that people with different temperaments aren’t perfectly suited for living there.
And, I would just like to point out that I would be much more likely to get into an intelligent discussion with you if you hadn’t told me to “grow up” and called me “mean.” You have misunderstood my intentions and reacted in anger, and I hope that those feelings leave you soon. They can’t be pleasant, and I never meant to cause them.
I don’t believe every Texan is racist (just like I don’t believe everyone in the U.S. is racist). In fact, I know they’re not. I’m one Texan who is not, my husband is one, and I know of several more who are not. I’m sure that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I also believe that small towns have some of the best people around. I grew up in Rendon Texas. That town is even smaller than Cleburne and some of the best people I’ve ever known lived there. People in small towns can be very loyal, genuine, and always willing to lend a hand when someone is in need, even to strangers. I know that this day in age that many people in the world aren’t good, but that’s everywhere. In the big city or in a small town. I don’t believe it is fair to characterize everyone in a small town as bad apples. Why let a few bad apples spoil your view of the bunch?
Thanks for your thoughts, and I’m glad to hear about your love for small town America. I wish my experiences had been similar, and who knows, maybe some day they will be in the future :)
I hope someday your feelings will change too. I lived in Cleburne for a very long time. I can see where you are trying to make some points, but I think it came off as generalising. I think that’s why it made people think critically about your post. (They felt attacked and misunderstood.) You are absolutely entitled to your opinions and beliefs, no doubt. I just think, like you said, through hurt feelings people only made your points more valid. I don’t think anyone meant to hurt your feelings or solidify your beliefs either. I hope you see how proud people are of not being like the people you described in your post here and how passionate they were to defend that. No harm was meant and I hope you understand that. I hope you can see these people as friends and not as enemies because I’m sure truly that’s how they feel. They just wanted to convey to you their experience and beliefs. No one wants you or anyone else to believe they/we are bad. That’s a sickening horrible feeling to have. As I’m sure you feel the same way. Also, I do appreciate how you handled everyones posts. You could’ve added fuel to the fire, but you didn’t. Thanks for that. (Reaching my hand out, so you can shake it.)
Your New Friend From Texas