I’m a fair way behind the pop cultural curve these days, particularly when it come to television. TV in Oz is, well, just very bad. It consists mostly of reality shows and last season’s American dramas and sit coms or – worse – Australian interpretations of last season’s American dramas and sit coms. So I generally just don’t watch TV. Every now and again, however, I get sucked into some TV show – usually well after it’s prime. Dr. O’C and I have just gone through the withdrawals of coming off “The Office” cold turkey after running out of episodes on DVD.

Our receptionist at work turned me on to my latest TV obsession – “Friday Night Lights“. I didn’t expect much – a teen melodrama a la “90210″ at best – but this is inspired television. It’s a well-written, gritty drama, with some stunning performances. For a football fan like your underwhelming correspondent, the realistic game scenes are a regrettably too rare bonus. Above all, it’s a realistic portrait of a football obsessed Southern town. Dillon, Texas could be one of a thousand towns between North Carolina and Texas. Small towns with little to draw them together but for the success or failure of their children on the gridiron.

Last week, when I started writing this post, I had intended to use a different tone, a different punchline. I had planned to talk about how I grew up in a real-life Dillon – a dead-end town in the far north of the state of Florida. I had planned to flay Lake City, a town of about 10,000 to which my family moved in 1980, my father following the tail-end of north Florida’s phosphate boom. From the way this post is flowing, it looks like I’m still going to tell you that Lake City was famous for pretty much nothing, that was a squalid rest-stop on the way to better places. Lake City was a sleepy Southern town that would have been more at home in Georgia and Alabama than the Sunshine State and like most Southern towns, football was king. Lake City was pretty far removed – geographically and culturally – from the nearest pro clubs in Tampa Bay or Atlanta. Neither were there any major colleges or universities in town. But there was a high school and much like Dillon and their Panthers, the town of Lake City lived and died with their Tigers.

Every autumn, Friday nights were reserved for football. It wasn’t just high-school students that headed downtown for the games, anyone who was anyone hit the stands of Memorial Stadium. Grown men reliving their lost youth living vicariously through seventeen and eighteen year old boys. Alums who had reached their prime at about 18 and now tried to reclaim some of that vigor by hollering out from the steel bleachers at boys in purple and gold on the cropped grass below. The mood of the town for the following week was dictated by the number on the scoreboard at the end of four quarters.

At some point in my teens I realized that Lake City had nothing to offer me. I got the hell out of Lake City as soon as I could. At seventeen I graduated and after one more summer in a devil town, hit the road for college. A couple more summers at home and I never looked back. I came back for visits. My parents remained there until about five years ago when they headed for greener pastures themselves. With their departure I knew I’d never be back to what I have to consider my ‘hometown’.

I’ve written about Lake City before. I’ve written with scorn about the people and the complete lack of culture and opportunities. I’ve written about the poor public education system I’ve written about my gratitude that I never have to go back, that I no longer have a single tie to the place. But I don’t want this to be another post about how much the place I grew up sucked. It did suck.  Yes, I took what I consider to be more than my fair share of shit in high school, much of it from guys who were a lot like the gridiron starts of “Friday Night Lights”.  But that taught me to be quick witted, allowed me the charisma I still use to get out of tough spots today. Yes, the public schools of Columbia County were absolutely dreadful – some of the worst in a state full of pretty awful public schools. But I had some great individual teachers and I had opportunities to excel beyond the curriculum. I learned how to think on my own and learn outside of the classroom – skills that I still use today.  Lake City offered little in the way of culture (OK, I got to see Johnny Cash in the community college gym once) and no career opportunities outside of the Super Wal-Mart (currently the city’s number one employer). But this taught me to keep my eyes open for opportunity wherever it may raise its head and to find entertainment in the simplest things. Above all, Lake City, in all it’s stifling blandness taught me to see the beauty in other places.

I am where I am because of my personal history – both the people, places and things that were fantastic and the people, places and things that sucked. Lake City sucked. But without those years in a devil town, I may not be where I am today. I’m happy today, and I guess it’s time to recognize that Lake City played a role in getting me here. So, through gritted teeth, I’d like to thank a shitty little dead end town in north Florida for its role in getting me where I am today.

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One of my favorite things about “Friday Night Lights” is the soundtrack  – subtle indie and alt-country tracks that accent the show perfectly. One of the songs that I’ve got stuck in my head and that inspired this post is Daniel Johnston’s “Devil Town”. I love this Bright Eyes cover from “Noise Floor”Bright Eyes - Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998-2005). Neither the original nor the Bright Eyes cover is featured on the soundtrack, but the latter is the best I’ve heard.

Image Credits:

Lake City #1

 
icon for podpress  Bright Eyes - "Devil Town" [3:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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