...are everyone's hometown memories really that good?

...prompted most recently by Jason Michael Carroll's "Where I'm From"...
It seems that the songs celebrating the old hometown are more prevalent these days than they've been in a long time. To an extent I guess that's ok, but as many as are out these days it's gotten to be overkill, I think. Do that many people have those idyllic memories of where they grew up and of their coming of age? And maybe it's just me, but that quarterback-dating-the-homecoming-queen thing, and even more generally the football-player-marrying-the-cheerleader phenom, seems to be so cliched. How many people identify more with the guy in the Cross Canadian Ragweed song "17"? --
"...The porch swing still looks the same, she probably won't even remember my name, just like she didn't back then
Is she married, is she doin' fine, does she know about all the nights I laid there cryin',
Just to know her hand..."
No, the situation wasn't exactly the same, and I don't curse my hometown like this guy does, but I could always sort of identify with the angst, or whatever you want to call it, the guy was experiencing, a whole lot more than I could buy Jason Michael Carroll's moms and dads being high school flames. I've known people who were high school flames but it ended up, well, going down IN flames. Call me crazy but I'd just like to see more songs from that perspective as opposed to all the Norman Rockwell portrayals. It ain't pretty, but it's more realistic...and isn't that what country music should be?