My Town

I really have a yen
To go back once again
Back to the place where no one wears a frown.
To see once more those super-special just plain folks in my Home Town.
from My Home Town by Tom Lehrer

There's something so jolly about those dancing Statues of Liberty with the big arrow-shaped TAXES signs who gyrate on the corner from January until April 15, grooving to their iPods in their pointy green tiaras and matching robes. They're the best thing about being stuck at an interminable light during tax season.

But only in my neighborhood, home of two murders in the last three years and a recent police shoot-out over a stolen squad car, have I seen a guy in a conical purple wizard hat, adorned with silver stars and crescent moons, dancing his heart out with a sign reading Guns and Ammo.