There is value in history and in institutional memory. Traditions passed down by word and deed guide us as we move toward the future. There are also cautionary tales gathered through time that may actually help you and your community. But baggage? Baggage just weighs you down.
Many times as I plow ahead on the projects that keep me excited about living here, I hear words like this coming at me out of people's perfectly well-intentioned mouths: “When I was growing up in Concord, it was SO LAME.”
It's usually offered as a statement with great weight, with profound meaning, as something that necessarily defines the place, forever and ever. Curiously, it's offered to negate the assertion that anything in present Concord could possibly be cool and is sometimes paired with “Concord is SO LAME because it's not like Portsmouth/Boston/New York/Montreal/Portland/Providence/San Francisco.” To anyone I've had this conversation with recently, please know that I am not picking on you inpidually, that I have had this conversation with many people other than you, and that I'm actually glad you brought it up, because it's a subject that should get a little attention.
First, some context. I grew up in a small city of about 40,000, about 3,000 miles away from here. It was suburban with a rural fringe. It was bitterly boring. The police loved to “bug” teenagers over minor activities like skateboarding, hanging out with no apparent objective or destination, and making out in cars – the usual stuff that makes teenagers think that living in a smallish place is annoying. Naturally, the various versions of my post-graduation plans always included leaving. I am the last person to tell you that your memory of where you grew up is inaccurate or wrong because I get it.
I'm happy to tell you, however, that your baggage is pretty irrelevant here in the present. Not because Concord is a booming metropolis chock-full of all the things that would have made your life perfect when you were 16, but because there's a lot of work to be done. It's time to move beyond the frustration of a righteously dissatisfied teenager. That teenage you was onto something but didn't have the skills and life experience to change things. You are not that person anymore, and Concord is not that city anymore.
Start writing a business plan. Start saving your money. Start calling whatever city or state offices you need to get the information that you need to make something that interests you happen. Hunt down that one kid who went to Concord High with you – that nerdy kid in your English class your junior year. He's an attorney now and he might be able to help you with some of the details. Your baggage only lives through your compulsion to give it life.
I have no doubt that Concord really WAS lame, just like you thought it was. I can't tell you that your experience wasn't real. We are 100 percent in agreement. And you don't have to listen to me; I'm just a pushy purveyor of pro-Concord propaganda. But when you're ready to let go of the security blanket, come on out to play. There's work to do and more hands makes lighter work. Don't know where to start? Start asking questions.
And start thinking about what you love about Concord. Here, let me bore you with my partial list of places, people, things and occurrences that have intrigued me since moving here, in no order of significance and with apologies for omissions since space is limited:
• Red River Theaters
Black Ice Pond Hockey
Butter's Fine Foods
Dos Amigos
The Gaslighter
Market Days
Concord Farmers Market
Small-town parades
The co-op
Pitchfork records
Wilco
Biking around town
Roller derby
A skate park
Various old cemeteries
T. Devaney Fine Arts
