Neil – Notes For My Kids

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Language vs. Grammar

June 23, 2019 / Comments Off

The easiest way to spot a non-native speaker of English is how they use articles (the, a, an, some, etc). Our grammatical rules surrounding them are extremely complicated and often do not make sense.

Is the noun plural? Is it countable? Does it start with a vowel? Does it start with a vowel, but with a consonant sound? Why do some countries get an article, but others don’t?

In my job, I work with many non-native writers. I need them to understand these unwritten and complex grammar rules because if a line of copy goes out that misuses an article, or if the support team consistently breaks a conversation rule, our image as a company suffers. People see us as cheap, unserious, and unsophisticated.

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I was recently listening to a podcast where the rapper Propaganda talked about his experiences trying to enter into the Christian music scene. He had grown up as a Christian all his life, but on the streets of Los Angeles, which is a far cry from the Bible Belt that dominates that Christian industry. He soon found that he wasn’t always understood correctly and that there were a ton of unwritten rules that he had to navigate.

The host said, “It’s like you could speak the language, but didn’t know the grammar.”

Let that sink in. You know the language, you can communicate, but you don’t know the rules surrounding the ‘proper’ usage. There’s the ability to communicate in a language, and then there’s the secret knowledge that’s built up around it to show who is in and who is out.

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English grammar is funny. There isn’t a central body that determines what is correct and incorrect. Many of the rules that we have are just the accepted usage that has developed over time.

But English grammar isn’t a full democracy. Certain spellings and constructions were frozen by those who were in power. And the poor and marginalized don’t usually have the time to learn all the rules. So, in addition to standardizing language patterns, grammar became a way that you could tell who was ‘educated’ and ‘uneducated’. It became both a subject to study and a means to judge if someone belonged.

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Think about the other social applications of this. Here’s a woman entering the business and political world dominated by men. She might speak the language of profitability, policy, and leadership, but does she know all the grammatical rules of influence, innuendo, quid pro quo, and many others? Can she apply them differently in meetings, board rooms, golf courses, airplanes, hotel rooms, steak houses, and more?

What happens when a person of color moves into an all-white suburban neighborhood? They may speak the language of having enough money, but do they know the grammar of landscaping, how many guests you can invite to your home, parking, trading food, and waving hello to strangers?

What happens when a startup in Asia tries to sell their software to the US? They can hire people who know English and understand the industry to create their marketing, but do they know the grammar of how to come across in an email and how to use humor? Does their chat support misuse capitalization or overuse emoji?

All of these are signals that the people in power will use to judge whether or not the other belongs or not. Whether they are welcome or not. Whether they can be trusted or not.

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One of the hard parts of grammar is that you can’t teach it all. No matter how many English grammar courses you sit through, you will still make mistakes; there will always be exceptions. The exceptions follow no logic and you cannot figure them out on your own. Worst of all, you may not ever know when you are making a mistake. Most people will just pick up on the cue that you “aren’t from around here” and quietly judge you.

You can only learn the grammar rules by breaking them and then realizing when someone lovingly or unlovingly points them out to you. No matter how willing you are to learn, you will continuously make mistakes and learn from them.

Rules change even for those on the inside, and people who are part of a community for a long time can be caught off guard when they don’t consistently keep up with the grammar rules.

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In most cases, the people learning the language have to suffer through the embarrassment of making grammatical mistakes until they finally can prove that they belong.

However, there are examples of the minority culture making a stand against adhering to the majority grammar. Most interesting, I think is black vernacular (sometimes called ebonics). It is a distinct form of English, not just a dialect that has crept up. In some ways it is a defiance–a way to say, “I’m going to speak your language, but use my own grammar.”

LeRon Barton talks about the need that black people have to code switch, or use a set of grammar around one group of people (say, the white police), and another set of grammar around friends.

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If you are in the majority culture that holds the rules, the first step is to admit that your grammar rules are not God-ordained. Realize that they are subjective, hard to learn, and if someone breaks them, it isn’t a sign of their intelligence, capability, or a moral deficiency.

When I lived in Tamil Nadu, I found it very difficult to find a native Tamil speaker who could teach others how to speak. Most of them said, “Tamil is very easy to learn.” Yet, most Indians I know from outside Tamil Nadu talk about how hard it is. When you are on the inside, it looks easy and seems like people should get it. But you have to recognize the complexity of your language and grammar rules first before you can welcome others in and judge them by those standards.

Be a friend to those learning, and give some loving insight to those who unknowingly break the rules, either grammatically or culturally.

Learning a new language should open up possibilities and the ability to communicate and exist in new cultures. Unfortunately, grammar rules shut people down and keep the walls up high.

Your Fixed Mental Age

May 4, 2019 / Comments Off

My wife was with my mother visiting the 4-H county fair in my hometown. There was a sign in front of one of the major animal exhibits that said “4-Hers Only”. My mother, who has not been in 4-H since she was 18 years old, confidently walked past the gate, much to the shock and amazement of both my wife and sister.

It’s not because my mother was feeling defiant or entitled to a closer look at the livestock.

It’s because deep down she believes she is still 12 years old.

When my daughter asks my mother to tell a story, it’s always from when she was a young girl–something she did with her sisters. She still looks at my uncles as toddlers or young boys who need care.

I’m throwing around this theory that most of us get frozen at a particular mental age. The example of my mother (who is a fantastic and very mature adult), is just the first one that got me started.

I told my theory to my wife, who is simultaneously fixed at 18 and 35. She often uses the phrase, “I was really good at that in high school,” which sparks the idea that she will always be at the cusp of anything she wanted–fearless, with the entire world open to her. She’s also been recognized as being “very mature for her age” and has been a consistent and trusted voice, even for people who are older than her. Even in her 20s, she naturally leaned towards those in their mid 30s. She is at her best as the mother of 8-16 year olds–kids who still need a lot of physical affection, but who also need a bit of snark and self-awareness to get going and see the realities of this world.

My father has been about 85 for the last 25 years at least. He is incurably nostalgic, reflecting on the good old days, and just kind of waiting around to die. That said, when he was coming out of anesthesia after a knee surgery, he went straight to being 17, playing basketball with his neighborhood friends.

My wife’s parents are probably 25 and 23, just starting off a brand new life, limitless energy, the best intentions, room to make mistakes, and excited about what might happen next.

I am 43–finally beyond the age when I need to impress anyone. I’ve reached the age where I can thumb my nose at the powers that be, knowing well enough that the worst they can do isn’t that bad. I’m old enough to have seen things and be confident in the general way the world works. Yet, young enough to give something one last great push and bring something into being that wasn’t there.

Your mental age is the filter through which you see all of your life, and your ongoing surroundings.

What age do you see yourself as?

Review: The Wizard and the Prophet

April 1, 2019 / Comments Off

For all those who like to write and talk about the environment, this is a great perspective to think about. Nearly all scientists acknowledge that we cannot meet the food, energy, water issues of our growing population, and that our growth has adverse effects on the environment. We are also more affluent as a people than at any other moment in history–there are fewer people living in absolute poverty than ever before.

There are two paths in front of us to solve this problem.

One is to respect the limits, reduce (or at least stall) our growth, reduce usage, cut back, find more sustainable ways to use what we have, and acknowledge the rules of nature.

The other is to expand the rules and continue to grow. Change the game. Find new sources of energy, new ways to exponentially expand food production, new technology to give water to many, and rely on technology to reverse bad effects on the environment.

The author calls scientists in the first group prophets, and the second wizards. For nearly all of human history, especially recently, wizards have been the ones we follow. The green revolution is a big example of this. The wizards keep finding ways for us to bend the rules and continue growing.

I’m naturally more drawn to the prophet model, but this book at least gave me cause to step back and question that. On one side there is the question of if wizards can keep up the pace of new revolutions that keep making live for 8-10 billion people possible. I would be tempted to say “no”, but the same thing was said when there were only 1-2 billion people on the earth, and we seem to keep moving forward. Had the prophets won out 100 years ago, we would likely not have made the progress that we have (or damage).

Then there is the other question of if it is even possible for us to make these changes. Individuals can make changes, but as an entire species? Can we actually hold back, or are we destined, like every other species on earth, to keep growing without constraints until we overwhelm our environment. If we did, we would be the first species in history to do so.

The author, Charles Mann says the trick is that we can’t follow both paths. We are on the wizard path right now and as long as we don’t make drastic changes, we will be for a long time. Do we continue to trust that our wizards will keep finding new ways to solve our most challenging problems without restricting our growth? Or do we drastically cut back our growth and change everything?

Can we keep trusting the wizard path? It’s track record has been good so far, but the challenges that await it will continue to get bigger and bigger. Are we just building on top of a house of cards that will eventually come crashing down? Or is our affluence and intelligence what is going to keep us one step ahead from catastrophe? What if wizards find a cheap way to harness endless power from the sun and desalinate all the water in the oceans?

How do we know when we’ve gone too far and the next solution is too big for us?

It reminds me of the financial system. As a country, and often on an individual level, we continually borrow more money, assuming and hoping that we’ll be able to grow our way out of our debt. We’ve been doing this for as long as we are a country. In some ways, we wouldn’t be able to exist without the growing debt. But can it continue to go on forever and keep growing without end? Is there a breaking point? How do you know when you’ve gone too far?

But even finances are a creation of man. We could conceivably cancel all the debts in the world and adopt a different system and start over. The same thing can’t happen with the environment. There’s not a quick reset button. There’s either full speed ahead, or drastically slow down and hope any crash isn’t as deadly as it could be.

One final thought is a part of the book that talks about the argument that we need to save the environment for future generations. The author finds this argument a bit paradoxical. We rarely make decisions that our good for ourselves, yet we find it compelling to make decisions that are good for people we will never interact with far into the future. He talks about although we have a phobia of death, we also live with it. There has never been a headline in the newspaper that says, “7 billion people to die over the next few decades”. We we talk about future generations, we are talking about all people groups, ethnicities, races. If we could look forward 200-500 years, we might not like the people who are alive at that time (assuming they are), yet we are willing to make big changes to help them out.

I don’t disagree with the motivation to leave this world in a better place than we found it, but I like how the author brings about some perspective on that which supports the wizard perspective.

There is something deep within us that we need to look out for our species. Is it altruism that is calling the shots, or is it our DNA?

https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Prophet-Remarkable-Scientists-Tomorrows/dp/0307961699

Regrets: 4

December 25, 2017 / Comments Off

I regret that it has taken me so long to be willing to change for my wife. It is the hardest thing I have ever done, but the most rewarding thing. Every time I am faced with the challenge that I am in fact hurting her by the way I act, my first attitude is to protect my personality and defend myself to find a way to appease her but not actually have to change myself.

I agreed to be married to Mama for the rest of my life. Why would I continually not do what I know what will bring happiness to her?

I’ve hurt her in many ways, and most of them needlessly because I refused to learn a lesson and really change.

Choosing someone to marry is a huge commitment, but perhaps the biggest part is being willing to change something about yourself in order to meet their needs.

Regrets: 3

December 25, 2017 / Comments Off

I was in college and was in a class with a very famous professor. He was very jolly, very deep, very challenging, and he rode a really cool black bicycle around campus. He and it together were amazing, almost mythical. It had this long banana seat and small wheels and was legendary.

Our class was meeting in a different building and the professor realized he needed something from his office. Rather than going himself, he asked me to go get it for him – of course because I was so responsible and wouldn’t do anything foolish.

I walked out of the building and immediately saw the black bike.

in a building and he realized that he needed something from his office. He asked me to go back and get it for him. I walked out of the building and saw the bike.

I knew I had the opportunity of a lifetime. I could walk to his office, or I could ride in style.

Because this is listed as a regret, you probably can guess what I picked.

To this day, I know I should have taken the bike.

Regrets: 2

December 25, 2017 / Comments Off

I was in college and I got a call from my friend very early on a Sunday morning asking if my parents were alright. I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I learned that a huge tornado had struck my hometown. I called around and eventually found out that my home had been directly hit and destroyed. By God’s grace, my parents had escaped the house with just some scratches and bruises, but could have very easily died.

I had to preach that morning at a church. I went and did it, but was a little stunned. I came back to the campus and finally got to talk to my parents. If I remember correctly, it must have been around Thanksgiving or something because I think we had Thursday and Friday off of classes.

I stayed at college and didn’t go home until Monday night or Tuesday morning (I don’t remember which one).

What a dumb move.

Why? Who knows. Maybe I was nervous about a paper I needed to finish. Maybe I didn’t want to miss too many classes. Maybe my parents said don’t worry about it right now.

That was dumb and one of my top regrets. I nearly lost my parents and I was worried about skipping a class? Dumb. Don’t do that.

If your friends or family are in crisis, you should leave what you are doing immediately and go be with them. I should have preached the sermon, packed up my things, and went down there immediately.

Regrets: 1

December 25, 2017 / Comments Off

People like to say they don’t have any regrets in life. If that is true, that’s great for them. I have a few and here are some of them:

One of my greatest regrets was when my friends wanted to go skydiving right about the time we were all getting married. It sounded like fun to me and I got Mama’s permission. However, the cost was going to be like $150. I had a little money, but I wasn’t spending very much money at the time, knowing that the wedding was coming up soon. Part of me was also just a tightwad as well.

So, I told my friends I was going to have to pull out. I wanted to go, but couldn’t justify the cost.

My best friend in the world who was also getting married at the same time (and admittedly not awesome with money), called me up and asked what price I thought I could pay. I thought he was going to try to talk the facility down to a lower price. I said $100. He said he would work it out and didn’t want me to miss out on it.

The day of the trip, I had an envelope on my bed with around $50 in cash. I still don’t know if he gave it himself or if he got all the other guys to pay a little more. Either way, I felt like the biggest chump in the world. I had the money to do it, but I didn’t and I forced my friends to pay more.

I learned how horrible it is to feel like that and vowed not to be in that situation again. I’m thankful for my friends for teaching me that lesson, but I completely regret making them do it.

Spending Money

December 25, 2017 / Comments Off

I grew up with this very midwestern America, lower-middle class teaching on money: be frugal, don’t waste money, save it for later in life.

That’s pretty good advice and I’m glad I have that as a foundation. But the most important thing you can do with your money is know what you want to spend it on. Otherwise all that stuff is meaningless.

This attitude makes you feel guilty about spending anything in excess. You get the feeling that you are always poor and don’t have enough money to spend on things. The goal just becomes amassing this huge sum of money for the end of your life, but there is no purpose for it.

The best piece of advice I can give you is decide ahead of time what you want to spend your money on. Big stuff. Life changing stuff. And then spend the money on that stuff.

Do it while you are very young, preferably with your spouse. Sit down and decide what you want to spend money on. Don’t wait until you are 60 to decide what to do with some big stash of cash you’ve been storing.

Mama and I thought these things when we were young and made a list. We came up with three things that we really wanted to spend money on. If we get to the end of our life and we’ve spent all of our money on these things and don’t have a dime left, then we will feel rich beyond our imagination.

Adopt a child
Give away an extra percentage of our income every year (up to 50%)
Buy a property with our family that we can all enjoy for years to come

There are two others. One is giving you kids an education of some kind, but I’m hoping that something better than “college” as it exists right now will end up being a good option. The other is hosting a great party when you guys get married. That was one that India taught us. We don’t plan on skimping too much for that.

It feels good to set aside money specifically for these things, not just for some vague future. They are things we can be very proud of, and know that we will be happy how the money is spent.

You might have other things you want to save for. Starting a business, taking a trip around the world, investing in a dream. Whatever they are, set your financial goals early on, and take pride in achieving them.

Part of the brilliance of doing this early is that 1) You’ll like set more attainable goals as a young person and 2) You tend to be a little more idealistic and clear minded when you are young. Both those things will help you set yourself on a great path.

Don’t be dumb with your money. If you don’t have it, don’t spend it. Have some money stored away for an emergency. But don’t be dumb the other way and just save for savings sake.

Wasting Time

October 15, 2017 / Comments Off

I love the feeling of efficiently using my time.

I realized some time ago that I rarely do anything I am proud of after 9pm. It mostly goes to “treating” myself with a movie, or piddling around on the internet, or not doing much at all. So, because you guys like sleeping with a “grownup”, I go to bed with you guys sometime around 8:30pm-9:30pm.

I set my alarm for 7.5 hours from when I sleep. If I get less, I start to feel very tired throughout the day. But, I notice very little effect from more sleep unless I am sick. So, that means I am up around 4:45 or 5:00am.

I start my work day at 6am, which means I have some time to make breakfast, shower, shave, do laundry, read, etc. beforehand.

For my primary job (financially speaking), I put in time from 6am to 1pm, fitting in some time for lunch. For the other two or three things I do, I give them an hour between 1pm and 2pm, alternating on different days of the week. Finally, I take care of loose ends*, administrative stuff, and emails from 2pm to 2:30pm and by 2:30pm I start my time with you guys. (*These loose ends are the biggest time suck for me, so after much struggle, I finally put all these things at the end of the day so I can’t get distracted by them earlier.)

We spend the afternoon together while Mama works on other things. We usually eat around 6pm or so, and then enjoy the rest of the evening until bedtime.

This is my ideal schedule; I still waste a lot of time here and there, but this is who I strive to be.

When it comes to wasting time, I’ve realized a few things.

Time spent with you is never wasted. Every moment we spend together is well worth the time. This morning, my alarm had gone off and I was ready to go, but A rolled over with her heat-seeking body and wanted to cuddle more. Despite me really wanting to get to writing, I stayed in bed for a while. I’ve never regretted a second of time that I gave to you guys and you are always worth me stopping what I’m doing and being with you.

Someone is going to get cheated. You can set up your ideal schedule, but something is going to happen to throw it out of whack. Stuff at work will start to overflow. A family crisis will happen. Someone will ask for a special favor. Someone will really need time from you that you had allocated to something else.

I really like some advice I read earlier which says in these situations, you need to decide ahead of time who is going to get cheated. For example, if I’m in the middle of work, and Mama comes in with an emergency, or really needs something, then I will cheat my work and attend to what she needs. The same for one of you guys – if you need something, I will cheat time away from my work to give it to you. Sometimes work asks me to cheat time away from you all. If it’s reasonable, I’ll check with you first and see if you are ok with it. Otherwise, I won’t do it.

Daily waste. There’s a much different feeling between looking back on a day and feeling like you wasted it, and looking back on a year and feeling it was wasted. Here, I mostly mean that feeling of looking back and thinking, “Wow, I did nothing worthwhile today/this week/this year”. Getting this feeling over the course of a day for me usually comes if I were to watch a lot of TV or surfing the internet (I can remember watching 3 football games in one Sunday and feeling like this), or otherwise sitting around. It’s that feeling of being 4pm and realizing you haven’t showered and are still wearing what you wore to be the night before – just feeling a bit disgusted with yourself. [Since having kids, there’s always something to do with you guys, so I rarely feel this anymore]. That daily feeling of wasting time is a good reminder, or kick in the pants to not fall into those traps of letting someone else tell you what to do next (like the television or a Youtube channel), but rather deciding for yourself.

Big picture waste. The other feeling of looking back on a year and thinking, “Man, I didn’t really do much this year,” is much worse. You might have 29,000 days in your life, so not being proud of how you spent one of them is not such a big deal. But if you only have 80 years or less, each one means a lot.

This is feeling like nothing you did mattered in the long run. You worked, you made money, you did what you were supposed to, but life was just going through the motions rather than actually worth living. In my view, the best way to combat this feeling is to 1. Set goals for yourself (I’m not great at this, but I hear it’s a good thing), 2. Get serious about the traditions you want to keep and protect for you and your family, and 3. Build time for serving others into your daily/weekly routine. More on these things in other articles.

Doing something once a week/month can change your life. It’s amazing the rhythms that are built into our lives as a result of nature – days, months, seasons, years. I’ve found that if I commit to doing something once a week, or even once a month, although that is a very small commitment, over the course of a long period of time, it adds up very quickly. This blog is an example, I decided to write something every Saturday morning. I have it on my plan to write a note to a friend once a month. We want to have a family date at Soho every week. I’d like to go downtown to the homeless ministry at least once every other week. Mama teaches English once in a week. These small drips really add up to something very significant over time. If you feel like you are wasting time, don’t try to fix it all at once. Just a small commitment that you keep and honor over a very long time, adds up to something really amazing.

Time is a precious resource, and one we should budget more than we do our finances.

Be From Somewhere

October 7, 2017 / Comments Off

It’s important to be from somewhere, even if you don’t live there.

Having a hometown, or a “native place” (as they say in India), means that you didn’t just plop into the world out of nowhere. You have a place you know, a culture you identify with, food you can taste without eating it.

There are some people who move around so much in their early years that they really aren’t from anywhere. Eventually, they just have to pick a place and go with it.

There are others who live in a place their whole life, but never really identify with it. Whether it is the suburbanized, generic Walmart culture, or just a fear of actually interacting with real people, they are stunted and are never really from the place they lived.

I am somewhere in the middle. I have virtually no emotional connections to my hometown that I can remember before high school. But once I turned 15 or 16, I established a lot of things that are today the reasons I feel closest to that place.

…driving by myself down the sloping roads, headed to a friend’s house.

…standing at an art gallery and being mesmerized by a picture of a tiger leaning down to drink some water.

…going by myself down to the riverfront to sit and watch the water move.

…heading to the nearby drive-in movie theater with a group of friends.

…going slowly down the white roads late at night while the snow came down.

…getting my haircut by the barber downtown who is almost certainly in the witness protection program.

…walking into one of the antique stores and buying a blue glass vase for Mama before we got married.

…visiting the local ice cream shop that sells massive servings for cheap.

…the feel of springtime and flowers blooming on the trees.

…the thick humidity and hot summers.

…how we called every carbonated beverage a “Coke”.

Even now, when I go home, I feel like I have to at least drive through downtown and see the river once every time, or else I’m not home yet.

Yet, I still wish I would have even stronger bonds to that place. I wish I knew it well enough that I could really miss it while we were living away from it. I wish I knew more people there that I could see when I visit. I wish I had a favorite local restaurant.

Mama and I will do our best to offer you the chance to do this, but you also need to take it on yourself. Do you know every road in your town? (I learned a lot one time after delivering phone books to people in my area.) Can you be lost in your town, or do you always know where you are?

Go to local events and festivals. I’m always amazed at what brings people out of their houses and gets them together to celebrate. Whatever it is that your community does, show up.

Shop at places where you see the same people all the time. Local businesses are essential for a town to thrive. They also give you a stronger connection to your native land. Go to restaurants where you have the same waiter/waitress every time. Have a favorite place to shop where you know the owner. Have a favorite restaurant that you always recommend to people coming from out of town. Have a favorite meetup spot. Get to know the owner, ask questions, ask for favors.

Find a place of natural beauty. I had the river where I grew up, but there was so much more. I remember working on a construction job about 40 minutes away from my home and being blown away at the gorgeousness of the rolling hills beside a church we were working on. Whether it is a state park, a waterway, a trail, or just a quiet place, find somewhere you really love and can appreciate. Walk every inch of that place. Know it so well you can be there in your mind in an instant, no matter where you are.

Make friends with people not your age. I would say that about 85-90% of the people I knew in my hometown were those I went to school with. The problem with that is that most of those people moved away. So when you go back and visit, they don’t live there anymore. Make friends with young married couples, young families, older families, teachers, the elderly – all sorts of people. These are the people who don’t tend to leave, and they are the people you will look forward to seeing. While family friends are important, make friends with people that we don’t know as well, or whom you introduce us to. Take the initiative to know people on your own terms.

(I realize at this point that this all assumes you are from somewhere and leave that place. You don’t have to do that. You can stay. It’s a beautiful thing to see someone so invested in a place that they see no reason to ever leave. If it makes you happy, it makes life a lot easier too. But that’s another topic.)

Know something about the local politics. What are the local issues people really get fired up about? Your vote means a heck of a lot more in local elections than anything nationally. At least know who is the mayor, or who is on the council, how things are run. There’s even a chance you could want to run for a position one day when you realize that you could change something for the better.

Establish traditions. When we lived in India, every Saturday we would go to a park to walk and then eat at a local place. It was wicked hot sometimes, but we did it as often as we could. Even now, those are some of the fondest memories I have.

Hopefully this is easy for you, but you have to be intentional for it to happen.

I’ll close with one of the most beautiful songs ever written:

Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.
Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze.

Country roads, take me home to the place I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mamma, take me home, country roads.

All my memories gather round her, miner’s lady, stranger to blue water.
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky, misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye.

Country roads, take me home to the place I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mamma, take me home, country roads.

I hear her voice in the morning hour, she calls me, the radio reminds me of my home far away.
And driving down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.

Country roads, take me home to the place I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mamma, take me home, country roads.

Country roads, take me home to the place I belong.
West Virginia, mountain mamma, take me home, country roads

Take me home now, country roads,
Take me home now, country roads.

“Country Roads” by John Denver

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