The Decay of the Dream

Then

Before parallel parking, before decay and blight a tiny jewel of a town rested atop the bluff that overlooked a majestic river.  There was hope and anticipation as the town’s young grew up with the belief that this place was their oyster and they would launch themselves from here.  Clear skies and bright days hung around their shoulders, and soft, moon filed nights crowned their youthful lives.

There were promises that life was good and the future assured.  

The summer of 1965 awoke

To corn fields and back roads

Of small town USA

It was the last summer of

My youth – my innocence

Spent in those fields and roads

Winding hollows and

Whispering hills

A river’s dance

Flowing placidly along

The banks of small town USA

It was a time of awakening

When those born from the

First wave of returning heroes

To reclaim their homes and family

Those born – baby boomers

And now in the summer of ‘65

They gained their fist right

Of Passage – into a new dawn

The world will long recall

And must remember

That passage of youth

That came with this first wave

I awoke to my passage

Coming from corn fields

And country roads

Awoke to a new dawn

Crackling forth from

Airwaves and college campuses

A summer to never be

Relived or repeated

A time of exploration

In this new dawn’s rights

Of passage

For a generation gone

Mad with the insanity

Of war, of prejudice,

Who held their

Elders accountable

For the sins of

The fathers

A generations whose

Voices rang out over decades

To be remembered

But it was the summer

Of 1965

And we were awakening

In the cornfields and back roads

Of small town USA

PSG

© 06/05/05
 

It was a good time to come of age in this small thriving community along the river that ran through the middle of this country; the mighty Mississippi. 

Today this town still exists but only as a shadow of its former glorious self.