Tag: Small town America

  • “The Disappearance and the Dreamers: A Return to Small Town America”

    “The Disappearance and the Dreamers: A Return to Small Town America”

    I could start this in a few ways.

    I could tell you about the beauty of small-town America—how it smells like earth after rain, how it feels like old denim, soft at the edges and worn in all the right places. I could paint a picture of local parades, gas stations where they know your name, and corner stores that sold glass-bottle soda as if they were dealing in gold. I could start there.

    Or I could tell you about the slow death.

    About how it creeps in not with a scream, but with silence. A corner shop goes dark. The comic book store fades into memory. That one spot that always had a single cook and a single delivery guy—hollowed out by time, or worse, by convenience. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. One day it was there, and the next… it was nowhere to be found.

    That’s how I found it, this town that raised me. A shell and a fight. Graying at the temples but still kicking. Still trying.

    I returned home with a chip on my shoulder and an axe to grind. My past visits had been disappointments—full of quiet judgment and half-empty shelves. I began to see the town as Lucy holding the football. I, the fool, forever falling for a nostalgia that never delivered.

    But then I noticed it.

    Not a rebirth exactly. More like resistance. Quiet. Stubborn. And beautiful.

    A locally brewed beer sitting proudly on a shelf next to Budweiser, daring you to taste something made here. A sushi place—yes, sushi—in a town where raw fish used to be called bait with a laugh. A barista pulling espresso in a repurposed mechanic shop, poetry on the walls, and indie jazz in the air. It didn’t look like the town I left, but it was trying to feel like the one I loved.

    The resistance is no longer being led by factory foremen or overtime heroes. It’s the dreamers.

    The artists. The comics shop rebels. The coffee shop philosophers. The chefs, brewers, and boutique owners who aren’t just surviving small-town America—they’re redefining it.

    I keep thinking about that comic book store.

    The one where I spent more time than I did money, though God knows I wanted to spend more. That store helped shape the person I am. Not because of what I bought, but because of what I learned.

    Inside those walls, you weren’t just reading stories—you were being trained in how to dream.

    You met other kids who knew backstories you didn’t, who taught you how a single issue could reframe an entire arc. You learned how to imagine better. To think in color. To expect the impossible and call it plot development.

    Sure, comics still exist. There are still conventions. Online communities. But they don’t replace the bike ride to the store on release day.

    They don’t replace the smell of fresh ink. The thrill of a new issue in your hands. Or seeing the store owner, and knowing him, not as an employee, but as a keeper of stories.

    That’s what we’re losing.

    Not just the stores.

    But there is humanity in the transaction.

    I was prepared to write a eulogy.

    To mourn the death of small-town America.

    But what I found instead… was a kind of defiance.

    Maybe it’s not dying. It could be changing. Perhaps the overgrown trees and cracked sidewalks aren’t signs of decay, but rather Mother Nature is taking her seat at the town hall meeting. Maybe she’s in on the plan.

    And maybe—just maybe—the artists are saving it.

    Not by keeping it the same, but by daring to imagine it differently.

    In this era, I don’t need to fly to the Quad Cities for a box of Lagomarcino’s. It’s a click away. That’s the gift and the curse. Accessibility without presence.

    However, some places still require in-person visits.

    Not for the product, but for the chance. Because on one of those visits, you might notice something new. A new mural. A new flavor. A new owner with an old soul and a dream too stubborn to die.

    So go. Walk the street you used to know.

    The one who forgot your name and then remembered it.

    The one still fighting, in ways you didn’t expect.

    The death of small-town America may still be in progress.

    But so is its reinvention.

    And I’d bet everything on the dreamers.

    By Kyle Hayes

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  • “Fireworks, Smoke, and Silence: Reflections on the Fourth of July”

    “Fireworks, Smoke, and Silence: Reflections on the Fourth of July”

    I remember the Fourth of July not as a lesson in civics, but as smoke thick in the backyard, children running with sparklers and paper plates bending under ribs and deviled eggs. I remember laughter louder than the cheap boom of fireworks we lit off in the alley. We didn’t talk about the Declaration or Jefferson—we talked about who made which potato salad. About the music. About the person who brought store-bought chicken and tried to pass it off as homemade.

    We were celebrating something, though. Maybe not independence. But togetherness. Perhaps not the country. But the neighborhood. The people who showed up. The people who still knew your middle name.

    As I grew older, the smoke remained the same, but the fire changed. Firecrackers instead of sparklers. Bottle rockets fired off in the street like we were challenging the sky. Then it became more refined—city festivals, parades, sanctioned firework displays. You’d drive out to the river or a stadium or the edge of town and watch lights bloom over the landscape like temporary stars. And for a moment, we all looked up. Together. That was something.

    Now? Now I watch the fireworks on TV.

    I sit in the quiet of a home I pay for with work that doesn’t rest. I flip past news coverage, see red, white, and blue glossed over a nation that feels exhausted by its own reflection. The fireworks crackle through speakers. But there’s no smoke. No laughter. Just the echo of something I used to understand.

    Small Town America still gets it, in a way.

    There’s a rawness to how they celebrate. The Fourth feels like a living thing there—felt in parades with tractors draped in bunting, kids waving flags the size of dish towels. It’s in the grill smoke curling behind churches and VFWs. It’s in the fire department pulling double duty—hosing kids down for fun in the morning, standing ready for emergencies by nightfall.

    In these towns, the holiday doesn’t ask for an explanation. It just is. A ritual passed down like recipes and stories told on porches. Patriotism feels personal—tied to the land, the local, and the lineage.

    But drive two hours into the nearest city and it’s different.

    You feel the tension. The mix of celebration and scrutiny. Fireworks punctuate protests. Red, white, and blue merchandise is sold alongside T-shirts that read “No Justice, No Peace.” The holiday is no longer a question of tradition, but of interpretation. Who gets to feel free? Who was never meant to?

    Region matters, too.

    In the South, it’s often steeped in performative pride. The flags wave bigger, but the air feels heavier. History isn’t just remembered—it’s reenacted. For Black folks, it has always been a complicated celebration. Independence was declared in 1776, but our freedom didn’t come until almost a century later—and even then, it was on paper, not in practice.

    In the Northeast, there are more ceremonial historic towns holding colonial parades, bell ringings, and readings of old speeches. It’s a curated memory. A museum brought to life. Patriotic, yes, but distant.

    Out West, the holiday is looser, more abstract. Backyard cookouts in canyon shadows. Fireworks flaring over desert skies. The patriotism is quieter, more tied to the land and the idea of independence—something rugged, something wild.

    The Midwest—my home—straddles it all. Here, it’s a mix of deep-rooted ritual and growing skepticism. It’s the county fair and the protest. It’s the American flag hanging next to a Juneteenth banner. A place that still wants to believe in something, but is no longer sure what that something is.

    And that brings me to now.

    To this country.

    To this moment.

    Divided doesn’t feel like a strong enough word. We’re not just on different pages—we’re reading different books. For some, the Fourth is still sacred. For others, it’s hollow. Some wave flags with pride. Others burn them. Some pray for peace, others brace for chaos. Will we celebrate with barbecues or barricades this year? Will the fireworks light up the sky—or drown out the sirens?

    I’m no longer sure what the Fourth of July means anymore.

    I’m not sure if I ever truly did.

    But I know what I miss.

    The simplicity of smoke.

    The smell of burnt meat and the smoke of firecrackers.

    Family laughing. Adults yelling, ” Don’t blow your fingers off.” The way we all stopped for a moment to look up, not at a country, but at the light. Together.

    That’s what I try to hold on to now.

    Not the promise of America. But the possibility.

    Not the history. But the humanity.

    Because if there’s anything left to celebrate, it could be the small things. The gathered ones. The moments are too ordinary to lie about. The fireworks we make just by showing up.

    By Kyle Hayes

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