tonight i drove out of montgomery up the patch of interstate named "the lost highway" to the home of my youth. a town so aptly named prattville. it is a little suburban sprawl in the red clay hills of autauga county. it is every small town in america. full of strip malls and service stations, burger this and taco that. i remember as a child wishing we had a burger king now we have two or three... on the other side of downtown it turns into old white houses with huge azalea bushes blushing with the fullness of spring. the air is full of flowers. curvy roads across the tracks...on a hill among the trees sits my childhood. a cedar fort of love. my parents are beautiful people. my fathers blood red passion and my mothers smiling gentle soul. we talked and laughed and hugged like we do when i'm around there. its not easy being the parents of a madman you know. its not something they write into the parenting manuals. you have to figure it out as you go. my folks have done a nice job compromising with my beliefs while not sacrificing their own. i respect them for that. i left their house and drove slowly back through the strips of lights to the lost highway and home. later, i took a walk down my gray rock street past the bed of sloppy poppy flowers with their petals slung around them like a hangover shirt, past the haunted house on the corner, wooden shutters always closed down the wide avenue to my local pub. its a dive called 1048. seedy as ever. this is the history of my adulthood... i watched a new kid fight it out on stage playing solo acoustic to his girlfriend and a few others who speckled applause at him when they weren't busy with their drinks. i remember...i watch myself ten years ago sitting on that very stage doing that very thing, telling those same drunks that i don't know brown eyed girl and timidly delivering the music that i felt so passionately. i had a chance on the way out to give him a "word" and tell him that i am the ghost of christmas future. he seemed ok with the idea so we chatted about truth, music, and dark smoky rooms filled with the drunk and the mad... actually, it sounds a lot worse than it is. you can usually find at least one interesting person to talk to or at, and people are friendly down here... if that doesn't work for you the streets are lined with massive curling oak trees that stretch their muscle bound arms through the foggy night. they are always open for any conversation you might have to offer, although the backyard watchdogs want nothing but silence for sleep, and i'm not in santa cruz any more...back at my house writing on a sewing table at 1am... yes, i'm back in bama, and all things considered, its not that bad.........for now... prattvillianishly,