(Don't Go Back To) Rockville

     Recently, I received an invitation to my 30th high school reunion. Apparently, my mother turned over my whereabouts to the committee after they were unable to find me on social media. Damn you woman! Here's the deal; I've never attended any of the previous reunions, I have no intention of attending this one and I shan't be attending any future reunions. Now when I say "invitation" I actually mean solicitation packet. They wanted all my contact information, they sent an agenda for the entire reunion weekend and wanted an essay about my favorite high school memories. I know this comes from a good place and I sound like a dick, but the last thing I want to relive is high school. Let me paint a picture of myself in high school. I was in the band, I wore glasses, I was an A student, I couldn't feather my hair like John Travolta, I was 80 pounds wringing wet and I was pathologically shy and afraid to ask out girls. On a good day I was ignored and on a bad day I was bullied. I know that doesn't make me unique, but I really don't want to spend time with these people now that I'm not legally required to do so. And favorite high school memory...I had nothing. I did get a good laugh out of the agenda, however. One of the items was to build a homecoming float for the Class of '83. Nobody wanted to do this 30 years ago, but magically everyone is going to be jazzed about it now. It reminded me of Mark Twain's book, Letters From Earth, when he describes Heaven. The same people who couldn't carry a tune in the church choir when they were alive would somehow miraculously join the choir of angels when they went to Heaven.
     By now, you may be wondering what this has to do with R.E.M.'s song "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville". The simple answer is whenever something reminds me of my hometown I immediately think of this song. That's the beauty of a great song. Mike Mills wasn't thinking about not wanting to return to his hometown when he wrote "Rockville". He didn't want his girlfriend to leave Athens, GA. to go back to Maryland. It's a fairly straight-forward song, especially for early R.E.M. But there's something universal about not wanting to go back and "waste another year". I can bring my own baggage to his song and feel better about my life. It used to annoy me when a songwriter would be asked to explain the meaning of one of his songs and say something like, "I'll leave that up to the listener". Now I actually prefer that answer, except for Robert Pollard. In Jim Greer's band biography of Guided by Voices, he has a whole chapter in which Pollard explains some of his songs and it's great. The best is his story for the title of "My Kind Of Soldier".  Anyhow, for me, "Rockville" is a song about not going back to a place where I didn't fit in. I remember when I'd start "lookin' like a girl", my dad would take me to the barber shop for a haircut. The brown panel walls were covered in antlers, stuffed animal heads, a jack-o-lope and stickers about guns and "cold dead fingers". I had anxiety every time I was taken there. By the end of high school, I started growing my hair out like Robert Plant. To this day, I won't go to a barber shop.
     Now don't get me wrong, I love my parents and there were some great things about growing up in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I feel bad for my kids having to grow up on a suburban postage stamp lot. I just didn't fit in with the God, Guns and Cars culture of rural America. The one good thing about that invitation is that it reminded me that I've managed to make it 30 years without going back to Rockville. Peace.