"You can't go home again", the title of an early book by one of this country's most prolific writers in the early 1900s, Thomas Wolfe, tells the story of George Webber, a struggling author, who writes a novel that makes references to his hometown, much like I have done over the years. Although George's novel becomes a national success, he is met with disdain by many of his hometown friends for the way he portrayed them. And that's where my life and the fictional character George Webber differ. My first published book of short stories about my hometown characters never became a national success, but I always treated my characters with the greatest of love.
But does that mean then that I can go back home again? Perhaps.
Wolfe formed the title, "You can't go home again" after a conversation with another writer and when asking permission to use the title, the other writer commented, "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."
So, does that mean then that I can't go back home again? Perhaps.
Wednesday, Aug. 14th, will be my second visit back to my hometown, Dayton, Ohio, in little over three months. Yet for almost 50 years, it was a trip I made less than a dozen times.
I don't look for the nostalgia, though it will certainly be there. I don't need to rekindle friendships from a lifetime ago, simply because they don't need to be rekindled, the embers never died out. And I certainly won't be seeking out a new identify for I am who I am, and as I always like to submit to people when asked about my life, my reply is always, "I am a simple man".
If you've never lived away from your childhood home, well then , my explanation for this overwhelming desire to return home probably won't register. And if you have been away from your childhood home for a lengthy period of time and you've found a new home elsewhere, then your childhood home might very well be simply a remembrance of the past.
As I have written before, when I left my hometown and ventured out on my own, I hadn't even turned 18 yet. I was headed to Oklahoma and then later Texas after a short pause for military service. Where I have hung my hat, it has always been home but always for these last 50 years, the chance to experience my hometown as an adult, has driven me to long for a world that was close to me, dear to me and of course where my source of all of the short stories I have written about found their beginning.
Maybe I can go home again, maybe I can't, but one never knows the answer to their questions, the results of their endeavor, the final destination of their journey unless that first step is taken.
So this week I take some preliminary steps in putting the plan into motion. Maybe my dreams will become fruitless, or maybe a Dayton that I have missed for all of these years just doesn't exist. But for sure, unlike George Webber, my friendships should probably still be intact.
"Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget." - G. Randolph
Peace
