Authenticity

It is challenging to find authenticity in today's suburban landscape. I am so drawn to anything authentic, I find that I actively seek it out any place that I go.   Recently, my class was discussing the impacts of the industrial revolution - and it occurred to us that everything we were wearing, watching, using, and tasting - was mass produced...and totally inauthentic.
So where do we find authenticity today?  Or, in its absence, how do we create it?

Often (though not always), we have to look to the past to find it.  We have to find items, institutions, and places that existed in the time before our hyper-globalized mass produced world.  But many times, we can find authentic living in our backyards.  I live in the North Carolina mountains on purpose - mostly because it is rife with authenticity: weird folk, old school lifeways, hippies, and open minds.  For me, I find authenticity in hand pulled barbecue cooked with wood, live bands, gas station diners, porch swings, local sports rivalries, spontaneous neighborhood sledding, cold beer in a can, watching adults cry, local record stores, worn hiking trails, elementary school plays, and bluegrass ballads.  And I can not measure these things - they are not quantifiable, they are not math....they just speak to me.

This past weekend, I took the kids to visit my family in Winston-Salem (my hometown).  Any time we go somewhere, I make it a point to put the kids in an environment of authenticity.  So, usually when we travel to Winston-Salem we end up at Old Salem - which is as authentic as it gets.  They love it, and see that historical town as their own personal playground when there (not unlike I did as a child). Other times, we hit the stock car racing on Saturday nights.

But this weekend, we dug deeper - and headed to the Southside neighborhood - where both of my parents grew up.  We ate at Kermit's Hot Dogs - an old drive-in that opened in 1966. It has never expanded, or sold out.  It just...is.  And we spent some time at the (restored) 1930's Shell Station.  When Shell first decided to expand in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, they wanted to make an impact.  So they designed their gas stations to literally look like a giant shell.  Almost all are gone, but if you know where to look - there is one that has continually stood in Winston-Salem - where my parents filled their tanks throughout their childhood.

And there is not another.  You can only find it on that particular street corner, in that particular town.  My kids LOVED it.  And my parents smiled big, and reminisced about old times.  That old gas station touched emotional chords in all of us - and not because the building materials are particularly important or unique - but because the spirit of its creation is....well... authentic.

I hope I can live that way.  I hope that when I am gone, I will have contributed something authentic to this crazy world.
How about you?  Where did you find authenticity this week?