The day came to leave the Boca Raton Beach Club and Resort.  On a quiet Sunday morning, I packed my bags and headed for the door.

It did strike me the absurdness of it all.  Here I was, a farm kid from Northern Minnesota. A guy who spent one semester on the floor of a friend’s apartment to save money during grad school.  A guy that started his first job in Wichita, KS living in an unfurnished apartment…with a folding table and a sleeping bag for the first two months of his stay.  A guy that was more accustomed to having to clean the dust and dead flies off of the beds at home then the soft creature comforts of a luxury resort.  A guy that still believes some of the best vacations are the ones spent visiting friends and family, even if that means taking along a sleeping bag.  A guy who can still remember his first vacation…1986, Iowa, slept on my brother’s floor.  And his first trip on his own…1991, Kansas City, National FFA Convention, slept in a dumpy hotel room one hour outside of the city with four other guys from my FFA Chapter.

Here I was, leaving one of the most opulent resorts in the country.

As I took my bag off of the soft mattress and headed for the classic door of my hotel room, I turned back one more time, to the TV, to the balcony, to the view of the castle like buildings out the window and the sprawling green golf course beyond.

Shutting the door behind me, I looked at shimmering cleanliness of the starched white hallways, at the regal carpet and the statuary by the elevators.

Through the opulent hallway I walked.  Past the upper crust people in their Armani suits, Rayban sunglasses, and polo wear with their designer shoes and perfect hair, wearing my Levi jeans, my pearl button JC Penney shirt and carry my “Superior Cattle Company” duffel bag (a gift from a customer in 2001).

I proceeded into the front lobby, where a white gloved porter took my bag and my car claim ticket as I checked out with the very polite manager behind the counter - hoping that I would make it back to see them very soon.

Then, with two doormen opening the gilded doors, I walked into the sun, to wait with more people in their fancy clothes and diamond rings.  Waiting behind the people as they got into their BMW’s, Lexus’, Audi’s, Lincolns, Hummers, and Rolls Royce’s.  In the middle of all of this, around the opulent driveway comes my car with the white polo shirted young supermodel-to-be valet…driving my Chevy Imapala with all the windows rolled down and the radio blasting…what else…Jason Aldeans, “Hicktown.”

Fitting.  Very fitting.

As the porter placed my bag into the trunk, to the shocked stares of the other people waiting for their cars, the valet held the door of my car open for me…all the while the music wafted from the car.

“Guess I had the radio up a little load,” I said.

“No worries sir, we like the real people here.  Gives these other people something to think about,” said the valet.

Out of the elegant driveway in the midst of those fancy foreign cars to the sound of country music proclaiming the joys of small town America I went.  Glad to be heading home.  Happy for my experience and the rest for the long weekend at the resort.  Proud of my roots.