Country Music Blog

I was born the youngest child and only son of a Manager of Advertising for a Refractories company and grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have no idea what my father’s father did, but it was something quite different than my Dad. I grew up cutting the grass on a 1/4 acre plot a mile from the mall. I fell in love with a young woman who was going to college with me and who grew up in a suburb of Detriot. She was majoring in Secretarial Science and I in Biology. We initially settled down in our first house in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. We lived there for 10 years and then I decided I was “called” to be a minister so I went back to college to get my degree in Religious Education. We were offered to move into the parsonage of a church in a small Northern town. After a couple years as a minister I decided that being a paid church employee wasn’t for me. I then went back to being a engineering technician in an R&D lab. Very much like my father’s first job. We stayed in the small Northern town.

We have two kids. One for each of us. We live in a house someone else built. I’m fortunate if I can just keep up with maintenance on our house. Actually there are quite a few jobs I don’t know how to begin so they remain undone. I keep thinking I’ll sign up for the courses at Home Depot and learn how to tackle them but as of yet have not.

So it seems I have nothing in common with Alan Jackson’s Small Town Southern Man, right?

That is until you get to the chorus.

For I bow my head to Jesus. (I work teaching and preaching and so forth for my local church)

I stood for Uncle Sam. (I served 6 years in the United States Navy)

I have only loved one woman. (We have been happily married (that is for most of it) for 27 years.)

And I am proud of what I have. ( I have worked hard for it. I haven’t completely worn out my body but some days it is hard to walk and stand.)

And my greatest contribution is what I’ll leave behind. (I have some pretty awesome kids), that I hope will agree I have raised with gentle kindness.

So I hope you’ll agree I have become a small town Northern man.

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