A Departure, Pre-Independence Day

There's a local mercantile in my little town that I frequent nearly daily. Not because I'm addicted to shopping, but because they have dog treats behind the counter, and my hound knows this. So she and I usually go into Brick and Mortar on our midday walk.

The store stocks a range of products from  fairly high-end casual clothing (think Filson, Howler, Pendleton, etc) and shoes (Blundstone, Birkenstock) to amusing bric a brac, booze accessories, books (they stock JoJo's book, for example), and locally-themed odds and ends. 

On our most recent trip, I saw this t-shirt:

For the uninitiated, that's a reference to Joe Diffie's 1993 hit, "John Deere Green", about a young man who painted the town's water tower with the words Billy Bob Loves Charlene in bright green. It's a prime example of the country story genre, and I love it unironically. 

Naturally, thinking about that song sparked memories of several more, some similar in their storytelling, others in their tonality. So on this Independence Day Eve Eve, a brief tour of my brain, country and western version.