Who says you can’t go home?

Clint and I spent last week in his hometown of Mulberry, Ark. Population: about 1,600. He grew up on a farm, where his parents still raise turkeys, cattle and Yorkshire Terriers. They also have an assortment of other dogs, horses and a lamb. He, of course, loves a trip back to Arkansas where life runs at a considerably slower pace than our everyday lives in Charleston.

I, on the other hand, get a little stir crazy after a couple days and insist on a trip to the mall in Fort Smith (about 25 minutes away) and a White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks. Ahh, civilization.

While in town, we spent some time just driving around. For a couple of years Clint attended the community college in Fort Smith–now a branch of the University of Arkansas. So we drove by the campus and he pointed out new buildings and talked about how things had changed. We also drove by the place where he used to race remote control cars (now closed). We stopped by a used bookstore (still open!), Snooper’s Barn, where Clint spent plenty of time buying used paperbacks as a child.

We even had lunch at the Pizza Parlor, a local pizza joint Clint insisted has the best thin crust pizza with chopped Canadian bacon. The place hadn’t changed a bit, he said.

When you move away from your hometown, you tend to miss the little things. And you tend to reminisce about every experience, every detail with a rosy vision clouded with the happy hazy of time. I do the same thing. When I go home to Ohio, I want to eat at my favorite pizza place. I want to drive by Ohio University. I want to shop in my favorite stores. I want to remember “the good ‘ol days.”

It’s tough to go back and see what has changed, so we hang on to those memories that have stayed the same. And if we’re comforted by a slice of pizza that’s been the same for 20 years, so be it.