Living in the country.

As I stated before, I live in Northeast, Ohio, in a town called Bath.

Some may call it a suburb. Others may call it a township. Some may even refer to it as Akron.

All in all, it’s country.

No not farm country with cows, chickens and farmers firing up big-ass tractors two hours before daybreak.

No. No. No. No. No.

It’s country in the terms of other things.

Crowing roosters in the morning. Cricking grasshoppers late at night. Chirping birds throughout the day

Sparkly planets twinkling in the sky. The ability to catch a falling star from the corner of your eye.

The occasional shiny beer can clanking to the ground. Possibly from an angry husband who had to much to drink at Gasoline Alley, the local bar down the road.

Airplane lights blinking in the sky, going from east to west carrying a group of unknown people to unknown destinations throughout the world.

Police who know what it means to not arrest a local. Unless, of course, it’s completely necessary.

Warm days. Cool nights. Breezy weekends. The smells of nature all around. Both good and bad.

Rodents - in the form of skunks, mice and raccoons - scurrying around the dark of night pillaging garbage cans for uneaten scraps of dinner.

The smell of fresh-cut grass. Followed by the waft of an elephant ear coming from a local summer carnival down the winding two-lane highway of Hametown Road.

Whispers in the air coming from the headless, decaying corpse of Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim "Help me. Help me!".

Broken, beaten mailboxes. The remnants of high schoolers playing a late-night, game of mailbox baseball.

Barking dogs and meowing cats prowling around the dusk landscape. Pure instinct of which millions of years of evolution couldn’t erase.

Spiders, spinning their webs on the dewy grass of dawn in hopes of capturing lost insects.

The distant sound of basketballs echoing from Lebron James house. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. CLANG!

Plumbers. Contractors. Copywriters. Housewives. Celebrating the end of the day by sipping on cold beverages and watching the sun go down.

Yep. It’s the country.

Pure. Untouched. Real. Raw.

I love every bit of it.

But you know what I love the most?

The fact that I can take a piss outside no matter the time of day without having to look over my shoulder.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Now that’s pure country.