I-74 isn’t exactly a bucket list highway — unless your bucket list includes pig farms and billboards for questionable fireworks warehouses. The occasional breeze carries the unmistakable scent of a hog farm, and one of the hills looks suspiciously like the Teletubbies intro — just, you know, without the weird sun baby staring down at you.
But for me, this road is holy ground.
It’s the stretch that connects my childhood home to my current one, and over the years, it’s become more than just a highway. I’ve driven it countless times: coming back from visits, chasing clarity, sometimes escaping, sometimes returning. I’ve cried on this road, prayed on this road, dreamed things I was too afraid to say out loud anywhere else. It’s held tears I wasn’t ready to cry in front of anyone, conversations with God that were more like sighs, and dreams whispered into the kind of silence you only get in the middle of nowhere — and for all of that, I’m quietly, deeply grateful.
There’s something healing about a long stretch of road with no traffic, no stoplights, and the kids asleep in the back — worn out from running through farmland chasing their cousins and looking for cool rocks. Just rolling hills, the hum of tires, and the kind of solitude that slowly invites you to unclench your jaw and remember who you are.
Sometimes I play music. Sometimes I drive in silence. Sometimes I narrate the whole thing in my head like I’m in a sad-girl indie film, sipping Trojan Mart coffee with a crumpled napkin full of Beef House yeast rolls in the passenger seat.
And maybe that remembering is why this drive always stirs something in me. It reminds me where I came from — that tiny town with its big heart, quirky charm, and festivals for every season and reason.
Small Towns, Big Stories
I think that’s why I get so nostalgic watching Doc Hollywood. It’s not just the ‘90s soundtrack or the slightly ridiculous premise — it’s the town. That tiny, eccentric little place with its oddball characters and big-hearted charm reminds me so much of the one I grew up in.
But it’s not just Doc Hollywood. It’s Cars. It’s Gilmore Girls. It’s Steel Magnolias. All of them — in their own way — feel like pieces of my hometown stitched together. Quirky festivals, small-town gossip, hard-working people with soft centers. The mechanic is also a teacher at the high school. The diner waitress remembers your birthday. Everyone shows up to the funeral, the homecoming game, and the pancake breakfast.
When I first saw Doc Hollywood, I wanted city lights, big dreams, a soundtrack that didn’t involve banjo music. Small towns felt like the opposite of possibility.
Also? I used to think small towns were just one big gossip mill. I mean, the whole place functioned like a live-in babysitter. If you did anything remotely questionable (or just looked like you might), someone would call your parents. And not just “someone” — anyone. Because everyone knew your home number by heart.
Half the town was basically on neighborhood watch, even if that just meant peeking through blinds with a cordless phone and a bowl of popcorn. And the church prayer chain? Bless it and fear it. I can’t count how many times I learned new and shocking “updates” about myself through that sacred grapevine — third-hand information passed along in Jesus’ name.
When I was younger, I rolled my eyes at all of it. I see it differently now — the town where everyone knows each other, where the gas station coffee is always lukewarm but the cashier knows how your grandma’s hip surgery went. A place where people might be quirky, nosy, and deeply committed to hunting and fishing — but they also show up for you when it counts.
That small-town spirit wasn’t just something you saw on TV — it lived in our streets, our fields, our calendars. You could measure time by the festivals, the parades, the way the whole town showed up for everything and everyone.
A Year of Gatherings
Every June, the town kicked things off with Alumni Weekend, and it all started with Street Fest. The downtown streets would shut down, food trucks would roll in, and live music filled the air. Old classmates gathered around folding tables with drinks in hand and stories flying. There was always a dinner and dance at The Beef House — a rite of passage made sacred by those hot, buttery rolls. Some people came home for the food. Others for the people. But the best came back for both.
Then came the Fourth of July Festival. This wasn’t a one-day event — it was a whole week where the entire town seemed to hold its breath in excitement. There were fireworks you could see from your backyard, but everyone still gathered at the park just to sit on blankets and lawn chairs next to people you’d known since kindergarten. The carnival rides showed up first — rumbling in on semi-trailers and unfolding like magic in the middle of the city park. The Scrambler, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the Ferris wheel that seemed taller than any building in town. And the barker’s voice echoing into the dusk: “Step right up!”
And there was always the giant slide — that towering rainbow-striped one you’d climb with a burlap sack in hand, daring your best friend to race you to the bottom. Half the thrill was the static hair and the bumpy landing, the other half was the bragging rights if you won.
Every night, there was music — sometimes a local band, sometimes an Elvis impersonator, sometimes a neighbor with a guitar you didn’t know could sing until he did. The parade wasn’t just a parade; it was a candy-collecting mission. Handmade floats rumbled down Fourth Street, each one more ambitious than the last — flatbed trailers decked out in crepe paper and local kids waving like royalty. There were tractors pulling hay wagons, horses wearing red, white, and blue ribbons, the high school marching band blasting out a semi-recognizable tune while toddlers clapped along. Kids lined the curbs with plastic grocery sacks, elbows out, defending their turf from siblings and neighbor kids. By the end, we’d go home sticky and sunburned with grocery bags full of bubblegum and Tootsie Rolls half-melted in the summer heat.
There were queen contests, baby contests, a talent show that showcased more bravery than talent (which was half the point). Funnel cakes and lemon shake-ups were their own food group for the week. If you were lucky, you’d get an elephant ear bigger than your face — powdered sugar stuck to your cheeks for the rest of the night. When the fireworks wrapped up, we’d run barefoot through the grass catching fireflies and collecting a fresh crop of mosquito bites to scratch on the ride home. The Fourth wasn’t just a holiday — it was a small town at its best: messy, loud, warm, sweet, familiar.
In the fall, it was Apple Fest. A chill in the air, the smell of cinnamon, and apples in every form known to humankind. It was basically the Forrest Gump shrimp monologue — but with apples.
Apple pie.
Apple dumplings.
Apple cider.
Caramel apples.
Candied apples.
Apple butter.
Fried apples.
Baked apples.
Apple crisp.
Apple everything.
If it could be made from an apple, it was there — probably served on a paper plate with a plastic fork and a smile from someone you vaguely remembered from third grade.
Fall also meant Homecoming, usually in October. Another parade (with candy, of course), a courthouse lawn full of people waiting for the legendary “Kiss the Pig” contest. The winner (a member of one of the high school sports teams) got the honor — or humiliation, depending on how you saw it — of kissing a real, live pig in front of a cheering crowd. Usually right on the nose. Sometimes on the lips.
There was also the Powder Puff game — flag football in borrowed jerseys, full of dramatic dives and serious strategy that probably mattered more than our homework did that week. Float-building became an after-school sport — hours in someone’s barn with a pile of chicken wire and a dream, trying to create magic out of tissue paper and paper-mâché to put the best pun onto a flatbed trailer to rally your class and invoke fear in your rivals. The pep rally was a full production — cheers, skits, and the cafeteria crew stealing the show with their performance of Lunch Lady Land by Adam Sandler. Hairnets. Aprons. Pure commitment. I’ve never heard a louder cheer in a school gym.
Then came the halftime show, the crowning of Homecoming court, and the dance — where we perfected the most awkward dance moves fueled by puberty’s clumsiness, raging hormones, and our lack of rhythm.
At Christmas, the town started a new tradition — a nighttime Christmas parade, with floats and tractors wrapped in lights slowly rolling through downtown. That one actually began after I moved away, which somehow makes it even sweeter. A reminder that even as life shifts and people grow up and move on, the heart of a small town keeps going — still finding new ways to celebrate, to gather, to light up the dark.
When I was younger, the big holiday tradition was Christmas concerts in the basement of the courthouse. I sang in one once thanks to the invitation of my dear friend, Rick Randles. I was a junior in high school singing “My Grown-Up Christmas List” inside the hallowed halls of that echoey, marbled town center.
Every year, our elementary school would also gather in the high school gym to lead the entire town in a Christmas carol sing-along concert. Families packed the bleachers, and the whole town showed up to hear kids in festive sweaters belt out Jingle Bells and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas with full voices and zero stage fright. It was chaotic, joyful, and completely magical.
Some winters, our church choir would go caroling around town. I’d watch my parents and their friends load up in the back of a semi-truck that someone had retrofitted with heaters and folding chairs, bundled in scarves and mittens. They’d make little stops along the way to sing Joy to the World or Hark the Herald Angels Sing to folks who were homebound — a rolling choir bringing warmth to cold porches and living rooms. It was loud and spirited and sacred in its own simple way.
Then came Prom season — where the junior class took the reins and planned every detail, down to the last balloon arch. The venue? More Beef House adventures, of course. Prom weekend always kicked off with our version of a runway show: students would strut their stuff down a red carpet (or something close to it), showing off outfits and dates while parents snapped photos like full-blown paparazzi.
After I moved away, they added a pre-prom garden party outside the local bank — a surprisingly lovely setting where families gathered for photos, hugs, and the occasional overly long corsage pinning session. It was elegant and charming in the most small-town way.
Next came Spring Show, which pretty much brought the entire town to a halt. It was a two-act variety show full of homemade entertainment, and it was the event of the season. Some years had themes that pulled everything together; other years, we just picked whatever sounded fun. One thing never changed: when you heard the dramatic intro to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, you knew it was showtime.
Then, Graduation.
It started with a full day of rehearsal, followed by a senior lunch — yes, at the Beef House, because where else would we go? The next morning was baccalaureate in the same gym where we’d cheered at pep rallies, followed by an early evening ceremony packed wall-to-wall with the entire town.
After diplomas were handed out and tears dabbed with tissues dug out of someone’s purse, we’d recess out the gym doors and into the blocked-off streets — where families gathered to find their graduate and take a thousand photos in the fading sunlight. It was joy and hugs and cake from the IGA bakery.
And then, a week or two later, the cycle would quietly begin again — with Alumni Weekend, this time welcoming a brand-new class into the fold.
What the Road Still Holds
Now that I’m older, raising kids of my own, I see it all so differently. What felt like “just another small-town thing” back then now feels like a master class in how to show up for people. How to gather around folding tables and parade routes and carol stops in the middle of winter. How to mark time with street fests and sparkler shows and apple pies on paper plates. How to squeeze meaning out of ordinary days and hold tight to the people who make them feel like home.
Maybe that’s why this stretch of I-74 matters so much. It’s not just the road that carries me from my old front porch to my new one — it’s a reminder that becoming doesn’t erase where you started. That sometimes the best way to move forward is to look back and remember what built you: rolling hills, church choirs, the sound of a marching band echoing off brick buildings, summer fireflies, and a dozen Beef House rolls riding shotgun.
So every now and then, when my heart needs it — when the big city feels too big or my dreams feel too heavy — I find myself back on I-74. Windows down, heart wide open, letting those quiet middle miles remind me that no matter where I’m going, I don’t go alone. I carry every bit of that little town with me. And I hope wherever you’re headed, you find a road that does the same for you.
Rachel L. Richard is a small-town farm girl turned suburbanite, a delightfully irreverent optimist, Mrs & Mama, floppy dog ear scratcher, lifelong learner, channel surfer, wanderer, believer, occasional creative, out-of-practice musician, cupcake addict, book devourer, and lover of all people.
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