Florida
I am up in Macclenny, my sort of hometown or at least the place I grew up from birth until I became self aware and yearned for more. My childhood memories include things like pine forests, white fences, cows, horses, chickens and rodeos. A quaint little piece of country, quiet, religious, kind and respectful. It had its mom and pop restaurants like Day’s Deli where you could get homemade pizza and sandwiches, Lyma Greens with old fashioned Barbeque, Country Junction with its high quality, not made in China, probably made in America, western wear. There was one, maybe two fast food places, there was a butcher, a hardware store, corner stores where parents would send their children to pick them up a pack of cigarettes without any dubious hesitation.
Everything was green, the homes made uniquely and with real craft, with backyards that had pecan trees and vegetable gardens, bird baths and ponds. There were wild rabbits, foxes, turkeys and maybe a boar or a bear. We would play outside until dark (even in the heat), we would swim in the black, murky waters of the Glen St. Mary river and not think about snakes or alligators. It was innocent, it was pure, it was before Capitalism with its shiny lights, faux stucco and Hollywood placed signifiers crept into our homes through the TV.
I remember when Burger King and Wal-Mart came to town. Then I recall the local sheriff and perhaps some other city officials were done in for some sort of marijuana dealings. So the old boys were out of the way, which meant the old money was gone and the little town was prostituted to franchised business as usual, all the “Mom and Pops” were put out and now your options are the same as any truck stop or highway exit in most of America. A super Wal-Mart knocked down over 25 acres of pine forest and now threatens even the franchised businesses.
I suppose the old Macclennians were preserving this little old town, perhaps with things that were illegal, but really there was no crime against anyone. It was just a plant that causes less harm then alcohol, that mellows people out and lowers the violent tendencies of testosterone carrying hot heads. And now the innocence was sold lot by lot, cemented with identical lego land houses and everything has become the ultimate manifestation of Postmodern. The ultimate manifestation is when everything imitates what it is suppose to be. Everything is artificial. Artificial food, tastes like cheese, looks like cheese, but its components are nothing more then coloring and something like MSG and maybe some dairy cultures. We buy fruit imported from Chile that should grow in our backyards. Just another commercial institution that makes big money for some American CEOS of a Chinese company, no care for the people, but that is nothing new.
What is new, is that the farther into the South we drove (meaning the farther north into the Southern ideologies) I started to notice anti-Obama signs. I knew these Republicans would be pacing the fence about a Black president. They say things like, “Obama is trying to turn this country Socialist.” And “What he (Obama) is doing is illegal.” And “Obama isn’t even an American citizen.”, Oh and healthcare, that is a big word and complex idea for these folks. What is going on up here, everyone is crazy. Firstly,this country will never be Socialist, the people here are too greedy, competitive and ignorant to be Socialist. I mean the idea of distributing wealth to everyone, please, that is just un-American. Secondly, Obama asking school children to get involved in politics by writing a letter to their president is something almost every American elementary school child has done and now these uneducated, stubborn, know it all Republicans are pulling their children out of school so that they miss Obama’s speech. Who bloody cares? Does it mean that much to them? It is just so, I can’t even think of the word. I guess ignorance is the best word.
Yes, Macclenny, a deformed child of the modern world, somewhere between mutating into contemporary and staying religious and moral. A drunk, wife beating priest, a child technologically connected to the rest of the world yet but confined to his parent’s, parent’s, parent’s ideals. Change happens in this place when money is dropped like a bomb that transforms everything to this and no one says or does anything about it because they bow to it because they believe that it is all powerful and perhaps even bigger then their God. They let it put them out of business, destroy their farms and enslave them to the Wal-Mart employee hand guide.
I remember a winter here, it was chilly, the pine straw was heavy on the ground, the air was fresh and everything seemed like an ideal from a Steinbeck novel, but perhaps now it is the place where the ear is crawling with ants in the grass, where Kyle Mclaughlin lost his innocence and Isabella Rossellini forever sings Blue Velvet and someone like Dennis Hopper is selling family land and businesses to the devil while molesting prostitutes.
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