Life in a small, southern country town is pretty cool. There are no traffic jams, or busy rush hours. The pace of life is laid back, and a lot slower than in the city. There are lots of farms, and fields, and the air is fresh in the country. The small town that I was from, Hemingway, South Carolina, is a town that fits this description perfectly. Oh, and incidentally, the people who live in a small town get to know each other intimately. Living in this small town was definitely one of my first influences in writing personalized children’s music. The slow pace of life, and limited distractions was a great place for a future song writer to cut his teeth.

Now every community has a school for its children to learn in, and Hemingway was no different. There was a day back in the early 1970’s that I recall as if it was yesterday. I was in the 7th grade at Hemingway Middle School. I was a pretty average student in school; not a whole lot to brag about, but nothing to be ashamed of either. Most of the time I came in and got my work done, and then couldn’t wait to get back home to play. I was always a little on the imaginative side of everything I did, and that included the way I did things at school.

One day I decided that I was going to leave school early after recess and go home (without telling anyone). Land was something that we had an abundance of in the country, and we had a huge playground behind our school. It was so big that I didn’t think anyone would ever notice if I just made my way across that gigantic field, slipped through the woods, hit the road, and walked back home. Yeah, but people know each other really well in the country. And I waved to a few of my neighbors as I walked home. Miss Pat Durant drove by as I strolled down Wild Flower Road. I waved to her too. She and my mom had been friends since they were kids.

As I stepped through the front door of my house, at noon, the phone was already ringing. It was my Momma on the other line, and she was just calling to let me know about a few things. Basically, she just wanted to let me know that I had just landed myself into a whole lot of trouble. That night when she got home from work my hide was tanned.

The following day, back at school, I was sitting in class when the principal did an all-call over the intercom, “Would Ty Curtis please report to the office.” The words reverberated throughout the entire building. I didn’t have a clue as to why I was being called. When I arrived at the office the principal said, “Ty, pull up a chair.” He asked me how my day was yesterday, and I let him have the details of the memorable last night. He said, “Well it’s great that you have rules and consequences in your family. We have a few rules and consequences at school too.”

We were “old-fashioned” in that small town, and after that nice talk with the principal two stiff blows from a wooden paddle would land on my rear. “Just reinforcing our policies about skipping class,” he said.

I learned a lot about life while residing in that small country town, and this was just another lesson. The “board of education” was very effective in that community and most of the children from my town had a healthy respect for it. There were many tales that would be told from my hometown. But this concludes the story of the tail that was tanned from Wild Flower Road.

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