You can't go home again

    Well folks, I just returned from a Luke Bryan show. 

1. He is more hot in person than on TV.
2. He is 36, married with a kid. 
3. He is possibly the best dancer in the country music world.

In the mix of shaking it for me and the rest of the crowd he managed to put on a damn good show. He asked the audience to do something during his show that got me thinking. "If you're proud to be from Alabama say hell yeah." Of course the entire crowd yelled including me, but were we all truly proud to be from Alabama? I have no way of knowing.

    There are days that I think being an Alabamian has held me back. There are days that I think being from Alabama has taught me some true American values that not everyone gets to learn. There are some days that my Southern values clash so hard with my own values that my head hurts. 

    Luke Bryan is from Georgia ,and I'm sure that with his fame he wouldn't change that. I would like to know how hard his journey to fame was and how it would have been different from a bigger state, a bigger town, a non-southern origin. Would it have been easier to find a dream job if my resume had never said Muscle Shoals High School on it?

    After thinking for awhile on whether I was proud or not to be from Alabama I finally decided that yes I was proud. This is where I grew up, this is where I learned to ride a bike, this is where I learned the difference between the SEC and everyone else. I learned to drive a stick in the field behind my house. I had my first love and my first heat break. I've been going to one of the last drive-in movies since I was 15. I can't imagine being from anywhere else, and no matter how much shit I talk about it I would never change it. 

   I can only hope that what I have learned from it will push me forward rather than bring me down. My values will prove a plus rather than a burden. This is my home, and I'm proud to be from Alabama.