Hometown Glory: Part One

"When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood.”
~Sam Ewing

Last weekend, I had the great blessing of going back to my hometown, the first time in 2 and a half years. I called it Sue and Jen's Food Tour 2009. There's something about having a million different people to catch up with that causes you to plan a different person to have every meal with. I shouldn't need to eat again until next Monday.

But it was a sweet time of seeing and hugging and laughing with the people who shaped my middle school and highschool years, arguably the most influential. As much as the actual town has changed, the people and my relationships with them seem to have picked up right where we left off and that I could not be more thankful for. So, here's part one on my people in the small town of Marysville, Ohio...

Tom and Sue Powell

I can say in all sincerity that I don't know where to begin with these two. They have made me laugh harder and be more silly than just about anyone I can think of. Tom is a photographer who used to work for our tiny little local newspaper before he and his wife Sue opened their own studio in town. My senior year of highschool I worked for them as an assistant when Tom had to go on location and then in the studio doing all kinds of odd jobs. When I came back from college in the summers they always found work for me to do.

Working for them was the first time I realized I truly could love a job. I not only loved it for the actual work that I got to do and the people I got to meet, but because Tom and Sue were, and are, two of the most amazing people in my life. When I first went to work there I had quit my job working as a hostess at Bob Evans. At the restaurant I had been told that I was not allowed to visibly wear my cross necklace or any other "faith-related" symbol. I didn't know if this was common in most workplaces so I asked Sue when we had the dress code talk if I needed to keep it hidden. She said, "If you ever hide your faith in here, I don't want you to work here anymore. I have an angel that hangs over our cash register and if somebody doesn't like it then they are welcome to go somewhere else." That was the end of that conversation, but only the beginning of many others about God and church and faith.

Tom and Sue supported everything I was involved in and encouraged me in all my busyness, basically allowing me to make my own schedule with them, working around all the other activities I was involved in. They took a sincere interest in my life and I never once doubted whether or not I could talk to them about anything I was dealing with. I never really had to though because the moment I walked through the studio door I was laughing. They are two of the funniest human beings that have ever walked this earth. They're crass and they're outspoken and gruff and Tom's always got a big pile of tobacco behind his lip, but there is something so endearing about both of them that I've never been able to put my finger on. I could never help but smile when I was with them. The most boring job of the day never failed to be entertaining when I was with them.

I relied on them so much when I lived there and I didn't realize it until I walked through the studio door the other day and just felt safe. Something about that place will always resonate as home with me.

I spent hours in there on Thursday just laughing, talking, catching up on life, making fun of Tom like I always did and helping him set up his own facebook profile. He still calls me by the nickname he gave me 7 years ago, Jenna 5. We talked about what's going on in my life and he asked me to come back and work for him, just like he does every time I'm there. Tom is a Marine, a Vietnam war vet and on Thursday he told me stories about his war experiences, probably more than he had ever shared before. At one point I said, "Tom, how did you survive it?" And he just looked at me and said, "I don't know," then he walked back into his office and walked back out with a little black box that had just a few letters on the outside that said, "Purple Heart." On the inside was a beautiful, worn, unmistakable medal, given for having been wounded in battle. But surviving what the two men standing next to him did not. But like Tom, things never stay serious for too long and he said, "You know one time I just took off running and my captain said, 'Powell, why are you running?' and I said, 'Because I can't fly. Sir.'" We laughed and moved on with the conversation, Sue giving me the little pieces of stories that Tom wasn't willing to share.

I wish I even had the words to write about them to feel like I was doing more justice to who they are, what their personalities are. But I don't. I'm not that talented. If I ever were able to write something that I felt like accurately captured the essence of these two in general and in relation to my life, I'll feel worthy of calling myself a writer.

But until then...