Ground I Grew Up On

We don't watch much TV at all - haven't done so in years, so we missed the fact that a young man from Livingston, Louisiana named Laine Hardy won American Idol in 2019.  Livingston is 121 miles away from where we live.  I guess you can't really say that's local, but it's pretty close to us.  Livingston is a small town with approximately 1,931 people living there.  

Although Laine Hardy didn't come from our town, I appreciate his values and love of the land and pride in his simple upbringing in an age where traditional values and being from "the country" is looked down upon by many.  I want to share with you a video and song by this young man entitled "The Ground I Grew Up On."  The video is shot in Livingston, Louisiana.  It is a nice song.  Click the arrow to watch.  I've cut & pasted some of the lyrics below:  (Enjoy!)

Ground I Grew Up On

That ain't just dirt

That ain't just dust blowin'

That ain't just nothin' but an old fishin' hole

Ain't just some rooster crowin'

It's where I learned how to be a boy

Washed in the blood and red dirt mud

Kinda glad I didn't have a choice

So girl just kick back in that shotgun

Let me show you where I'm from

Girl, where I'm from

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But that's the ground I grew up on

Yeah, that's the ground I grew up on

Girl, don't blink

You might miss it all

It's where I could fix anything I broke but the law

It was hard to leave

Girl, that's the truth

But you know if I'd stuck around

This little town, I'd have never found you

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But that's ground I grew up on

Yeah, that's the ground I grew up on

Where the tales are as tall as the corn grows

Baby, who knows if we're lucky?

Maybe one day at our back door

Might look like nothin' but gravel roads

And tractors rollin' over them fields

And prayin' that we get a little rain soon

And cuttin' loose in hand me down wheels

And knockin' them Friday night beers back

By the train tracks and thinkin' that

I'd never miss this place when I got gone

But lookin' back I couldn't have been more wrong

'Cause that's the ground I grew up on

Yeah that's the ground I grew up on