Back Where I Come From

It's been ten years since I moved away from the mid-Missouri farm town I call home. I go back fairly frequently because the parents still live there and when we lived in St. Louis it was only about an hour away. But typically when I'm home, the only contact I have with the town is the three minutes it takes to drive through it and get to my parents' subdivision. However, the second weekend of September, I got the chance to see what a decade of change does to small town America and the people who grew up there.


My hometown marks the halfway point between St. Louis and Columbia (home of the University of Missouri, the biggest university in the state). It lies on Interstate 70, so it's a landmark for college students headed home to the Lou, and it prides itself on being extremely road trip friendly--just about every fast food restaurant known to man is found within a half mile of the exit ramp, and there are no fewer than eight gas stations. For whatever reason there are also at least a dozen different churches, because I guess you never know when you might be driving through the midwest, see a "Jesus Loves You" billboard and feel compelled to attend services as soon as possible. There is also a huge outlet mall, a brand new Wal-Mart and a brand new Walgreens, one non-chain restaurant, a couple dive bars, at least six or seven trailer parks, and thousands of acres of farmland. Ah yes, good ol' Warrenton.

(Note: For authentic pronunciation of the town's name, remove the vowels so that the end result is something more like Warnt'n).

I wasn't actually a class officer my senior year, but Holly was, and we all know that I lead a dual life--divorce attorney by day, party planner by night. So Holly and I teamed up in early spring to get the ball rolling on what was sure to be the best party Warnt'n has seen in ten years! In hindsight I think we probably surprised a lot of people by taking the initiative to plan this thing, especially considering that neither of us live in Warnt'n anymore and neither of us were big partiers in high school (unless you count the two wine coolers I drank after senior prom), but as it turns out, a lot changes in ten years.


Of course, in the end we didn't even have the party in Warnt'n (for numerous reasons, not the least of which was the lack of appropriate venues...Applebee's and the VFW Hall just didn't seem to be quite what we were looking for). Rather, we decided to class it up a bit and go with Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta, Missouri. We had nearly 50 people in attendance on our private deck overlooking the winery's main patio, and a couple hours of open bar insured some lively conversation while everyone was catching up. Naturally, we gave out awards and superlatives to people in attendance (yours truly won the award for "Most Professionally Accomplished" and "Traveled the Farthest to Be Here," and Holly took home the prize for having had the most kids). With the help of a few classmates, I put together a slideshow on my computer that cycled through over a hundred pictures from high school, set to a playlist of the top songs from 1997 and 1998. There was also an abundance of cheese and sausage and fruit and such to munch on, but it should come as no surprise to any of my readers that I feasted solely on nondescript white wine and Bud Select and loved every minute of it.


When the formal part of the reunion was over early in the evening (and I'd spent a prolonged period of time assisting my best friend, who also apparently feasted solely on booze, safely to a bed in her mom's house), we asked our sober driver to take us to a beer joint on Main Street in Warnt'n to continue the party. And let me tell you, I certainly felt every bit of being the "most professionally accomplished" when my husband and I were being chauffeured around my hometown by my mom in her bright yellow Pontiac Aztek because we'd had too much cheap wine and Bud Select to drive ourselves to the little bar in town.


Despite many days of wishing that this damn reunion would just be over and done with already (the selection of an outfit alone was stressful enough...finding something flattering that manages to not look like you tried too hard can be extremely frustrating), I was surprisingly sad to have to say goodbye to everyone at the end of the night. Of course I still see Holly as often as I can, but the crew that came out with us to Brewski's after the reunion were people I've fallen entirely out of contact with over the past ten years....many of whom were close friends that I thought would always be in my life. Some of them still live in Warrenton, but some have moved nearly as far away as I have. Many have children, most are married. Some look like they just walked out of the pages of our senior yearbook, others have changed tremendously. It was fascinating to hear what people are doing for a living and what paths their lives have taken to land them where they are.


But more than anything else, I was pleasantly surprised to see how much interpersonal dynamics can change--for the better--in a decade. There was a whole new level of respect and acceptance amongst our classmates that I didn't expect to see. Planning this event, all I heard was their apathy and criticism, and it was all too reminiscent of high school and all the things that made me want to get out of Warrenton as fast as possible in 1998. But those 50 people who came out on September 13th completely changed my mind about where I come from. Gone were the distinctions that divided us in high school, and what remained was something the blinders of high school would never have allowed me to see--these are generally good people with good hearts.

San Diego is a long way from Warnt'n. 1,869 miles to be exact. And in a lot of ways it feels even farther than that. Where San Diego is diverse, Warrenton is homogeneous. Where San Diego has culture, Warrenton has high school football games. Where San Diego is a vacation destination, Warrenton is a potty break along I-70. But Warrenton--with all of its shortcomings, gas stations, and farmers--is doing pretty well for itself. And so are its alumni. Californians love to poke fun at my middle-America roots, but my weekend in Warrenton and an afternoon with a bunch of other people who share those roots reminded me of one thing--I'm proud as anyone that's where I come from.