Collector Blog: Travel

Sunday, May 29, 2011

About a Song: The Heart of Groton.

i was born less than half a mile from where i graduated college.

I am a local, no way around it. I spent the last two years trying to convince myself I wasn't.
I was born in the pocono mountains.

I lived in the poconos until i was 23. Then i moved to south dakota.

I wanted the opposite of everything i had ever known. I got that, basically.
I realized, while a huge chunk of my heart was in the prairie, my home was in Pennsylvania.
I thought I'd try a bigger city. I moved to Bethlehem.

Foolishly enough, I commuted the hour from Bethlehem to the Poconos to finish up school. While commuting, I'd daydream about the different places I had lived.
Life is easy in the prairie.
Life is fast in the city.
But dang it, i love the mountains.
I live in the poconos again.

More on Groton:

Groton is a small town outside of Aberdeen South Dakota. I was living in aberdeen, but took a trip out to Groton in the middle of February. Something like 1500 people ive there. It was about 15 below zero that day. The cold hurt so much we broke out in laughter.

P.S. a funny thing happens at sundown in the prairie in the winter. The snow, on top of the very flat land, turns blue (like everything) as the sun starts to set. If you squint your eyes a little, it really does look like the ocean.

The Lyrics of the Song:

Today i was driving home from the mountains, back to the valley, when i hit a huge curve and was thrown from the car but i didn't come down fast. no, i stayed up there. how did i get up here? suddenly i heard a surge of trumpets across the land and i was in the prairie. how did i get back here? how could anything be so flat, be so gold? a herd of cattle, buffalo. god it's cold. i bet it snows a lot here. suddenly i landed in the heart of groton, right in front of fritz's: thought it was a bar. no, it just sells antiques, don't think i belong here. thought about the ocean; now my toes are cold. checked my pockets; found six dollars. spent it on a nice lamp, thought i'd settle down here. looked outside and it was snowing. then it turned blue and it looked just like the ocean. whoa. gosh and golly i can't remember what my favorite mountain looks like. air is blue and so is dirt and snow and all the earth around me.