“Eye to eye. Station to station.” – James Brown

In 1976, I spent part of my fifth summer alive on this earth in the panhandle of Texas at a place our family called “The Grove.” The Grove was appropriately named because it was a grove of shade trees my grandparents family owned out in the middle of a section of flat land where the horizon never ends. Cattle territory in the panhandle of Texas, specifically the small community of Darrouzett located in Lipscomb County. We held many family reunions under the shade of those Dogwoods and Oaks including the summer of 1976. Smells of grilled burgers and steaks and hot dogs floated through the dry, warm, Texas air in those days. There were footballs thrown and horseshoes tossed around like stories from the old timers. Lots of jeans and cowboy hats were the fashion and a lot of us kids that year got our own celebratory bicentennial red, white, and blue t-shirts to wear for our country’s 200-year anniversary.

I didn’t really understand the significance, the importance, or really even care. I was only five, remember?!? Nor did I understand the historical significance or importance of the day of the people I was surrounded by at the reunion. Grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins were there, some of whom I would never see again. The picture below shows 40 something people in attendance when the photograph was taken, but for a five-year-old, it felt like there were a hundred people there, a new face with a new story around every picnic table and grill. Like most family reunions, it was filled with the same stories and the same laughter at the same punchlines. Stories handed down from one generation to the next to preserve and pass on to the next.

Fast forward 50 years, and America 250 has passed us by like a sparkler in the night. I didn’t spend it at “The Grove” this year. No, there was no family reunion to attend this year. There have been many reunions since the photo was taken, but life happens and many of the people frozen in time in the photo above have passed on leaving us the memories to cling to. No, this year I did something different, but something as American as American gets.

Moving.

I didn’t move. My wife and I still occupy the same house we’ve owned since 2004. Instead, my wife’s youngest sister and her husband bought a slice of the American dream – a nice house and some picturesque acreage out in the Oklahoma countryside – about 400 miles directly south of the center of the lower 48 states (Lebanon, Kansas), and several miles from the nearest Oklahoma town.

You can see the scenic Arbuckle Mountains rising some 1,400 feet on the horizon about 30 miles due south from their new front porch. And about a football field to the east, you can just imagine hearing the rushing water of the creek running down their property line when the rainy season of Oklahoma comes calling in April/May and then again in September/October. They have chickens, a little less than they originally inherited due to a recent visit most likely from a hungry coyote. There will be sheep coming, not the wooly kind, which is the only kind I was familiar with. A type of “hair sheep” instead that grow short coats of hair that fall out in the spring. There will be vegetables to garden, flowers and trees to plant, grass to mow, hay to bale, chairs to rock, and plenty of sunsets to watch.

Just slide behind the wheel. How does it feel? When there’s no destination that’s too far?
And somewhere on the way you might find out who you are, woo!

I’ll say it again. There is nothing more American than moving. We’re a nation of movers. Our ancestors moved across oceans and boundaries. We move from cities and towns. We move jobs. We move schools and churches and houses. We move. And not just ourselves. We move our parents, our children, our neighbors, our friends, and our family. And we help people move, not because it’s anyone’s favorite activity, but because the only thing worse than moving is moving alone. So we join in and we pack and unpack boxes and move furniture. We lift and we bend, muscles ache and backs become sore. We make messes and we clean messes. We laugh and we sweat and we swear and we sweat some more, and then we do it all again the next day. But most of all, we create memories with our family and shake our heads at the collective craziness of it all.

I can’t tell you where I’ve spent half of my 4th of July’s, but I’ll always have the bicentennial in the Texas panhandle, and I’ll always have 250 in middle America joining forces with my wife, another sister-in-law, her daughter, and my nephew and his girlfriend all helping to move my sister-in-law and her husband. Moving them from a house in a crowded city subdivision they’ve occupied nearly 17 years with cars lined down streets and your neighbor’s house just feet away out into the wide-open space of the Oklahoma countryside.

And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

You may not be lookin’ for the promised land
But you might find it anyway

One man that could move in all kinds of ways was the one and only “Godfather of Soul,” James Joseph Brown, born in Barnwell, South Carolina in 1933. By the time one of the most patriotic sports’ movies of all-time was released in 1985, James Brown was 52, old and washed up by music standards, and he hadn’t had a top 40 U.S. Billboard hit since 11 years earlier in 1974.

“Living in America” would be Brown’s last big hit even though he would score several hits on the R&B charts through the end of the 80’s. Written by Dan Hartman (“I Can Dream About You”), and Charlie Midnight, the song would score Brown a Grammy award in 1987 for best R&B male vocal. Here is the video with footage from the movie “Rocky IV,” James Brown and “Living in America”…

Thanks for stopping by and a happy 250th to you and to the greatest nation in the world.

In the immortal words of James Brown – I feel good!

sincerely,

the80s