David McElroy

Hank Williams is an unlikely choice as a potential role model for me.

He was a singer and songwriter, but I’ve never had the least bit of musical talent. He was closely identified with country music, which I grew up hating. He was a hard-drinking man who was closely identified with the honky-tonks that I’ve always found distasteful.

I grew up hearing about Williams and his music, though. My father used to sing some of Williams’ old songs and I was struck by how emotional and authentic they sounded. (Williams had been popular when my father was in high school and college.) That didn’t seem like country music to me. It just seemed like the music of loneliness and heartbreak and redemption.

I haven’t given much thought to Williams and his music over the years, but I’ve been watching the Ken Burns documentary “Country Music” in the last few days. As I’ve come to understand more about this Alabama musician who’s been called the Hillbilly Shakespeare, it stirred something in my soul that I rarely allow myself to look at anymore.

And I couldn’t help admitting — quietly, where no one could hear — that I still want to be a star.

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As I got into my car after work Thursday, I felt a vague sense of unease. Something felt wrong. But what was it?

There was something wrong. Something was missing.

I went through a mental checklist, but there was nothing obvious. I wasn’t especially hungry or thirsty. There was no pressing need that I was overlooking. But I felt a wave of crushing emotion and then a thought hit me.

“I want to go Home.”

As the waves of emotions rushed over me, I knew what was going on. I wasn’t feeling a sudden need to go to the house where I live. I was filled with the crushing need for something which we all know in a deep part of our unconscious collective psyche.

Home isn’t just the place where we live. Home is a state of being in which we’re where we belong, among people who love us, where we fit and are accepted. To be Home is to experience the magic of knowing you are exactly where you need to be.

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