No Place Like Home Part III

I alluded recently to a Mary Chapin Carpenter song where she says that she’d never really seen her hometown until she’d spent some time away. I’m sure some of you are way ahead of me and knew right away that I had the artist wrong. The song I’m thinking of is San Diego Serenade, which is a song written by Tom Waits and recorded by a number of artists. The version I’m thinking of is in fact by Nanci Griffith.

Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter aren’t really all that similar, and you’re probably wondering how I could mix them up. I’m pretty sure it’s because I keep both of their catalogs in the same box in my head labeled “Songs by Women I Like to Pretend Are Not Really Country Artists.” Lucinda Williams, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris have their music in there, too. Iris Dement would like me to put her in this box, but so far I’ve resisted. Michelle Shocked and the Indigo Girls are afraid they’re going to start appearing there. Margo Timmins of the Cowboy Junkies doesn’t really want to be in the box of denial, but as long as she continues to sing songs with titles like Murder in the Trailer Park, she leaves me little choice. The women of the Waifs, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t mind if I put their songs in the box, as long as it meant someone from America was paying attention. My point is, it’s a big bin, and I can see how the contents have shifted over time.

The reason I bring it up at all, really, is just to say that I know what Nanci Griffith means when she sings about distance making things clearer. Almost every time I’m home I notice something that seemed perfectly normal when I lived there, but which after years on the West Coast, has started to look odd. Or at least noteworthy.

This time it was brick. Everything in Northampton that isn’t wood and isn’t made of huge blocks of stone is made of brick--unreinforced masonry brick with no X-shaped retrofitting braces in sight. I love that look—brick, clapboard, and brownstone are God’s construction materials as far as I’m concerned. I just realize now that the architecture is strikingly different from what I’m slowly getting used to in California. Aren’t people in Massachusetts worried about earthquakes? (Hint: no.)

Here is a link to some pictures I took when I was home. (I’m back in California now.)

There’s No Place Like Home Part II

A few weeks ago, Pipi and I were driving through Oakland on Interstate 580, when I spotted a bumper sticker that I was pretty sure referred to my hometown. “Look,” I squealed, “Hamp!”

“What did you say?” Pipi asked me in a tone that said, “I’m trying to work with you, but this conversation has not gotten off to a promising start.”

“Hamp, HAMP,” I repeated, as if volume were the only problem; as if everyone in California knew that old-time Northampton guys refer to the town as “Hamp.”

“How are you spelling this?” Pipi finally asked, and I realized that along with my Northampton pride, I’d also experienced an upwelling of my Northampton accent. This twang, which has more in common with upstate New York and even the upper Midwest than it does with Boston, has a Cockney-like disdain for internal consonants. (Remember the nursery rhyme about the three little kittens? In my childhood, they were called “kih-ins,” and they’d lost their mih-ins.) The accent also strangles “A”s to within an inch of their lives. My “Hamp” apparently came out more like “Heeamp,” confusing Pipi, who’s never known me to be much of a rope-maker.

This kind of misunderstanding doesn’t usually happen when I’m visiting Massachusetts, and that’s one thing I love about it. I don’t have to watch my vowels. No one asks me to repeat myself if I mention a tag (yard) sale, or gets shrill if I utter the phrase “packie store.” (It’s short for “package,” and means a place to buy a six-pack of beer.)

In Massachusetts, I order a grinder and I get a hot sandwich, not a blank look. People here speak my language. And like me, they’re prone to pronouncing it “leeanguage” if they’re not policing themselves.

It may not always sound nice, but it feels like home.

There’s No Place Like Home

Regular readers may have noticed that my postings have gotten slightly sporadic. That’s because I’ve been traveling. I’m currently in Northampton, MA. This, as most of you know--because 99% of you are related to me--is my hometown.

Mary Chapin Carpenter has a line in one of her songs about how she never saw her hometown until she’d been away too long. I feel a little like that right now. I’ll try and see if I can explain what I mean by that another time. I will also try to post some more pictures so that the two of you who’ve never been here can see my hometown, too.

But now I have to reacquaint myself with one of the city’s drinking establishments. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. I will be back in Oakland Tuesday night, and real life will resume then.