It just feels like home
Kind of a gray, gloomy day here. Supposed to rain.
Talking on Messenger with someone who lost everything they owned in Hurricane Katrina. He moved back home to Delaware from New Orleans. He was telling me that it was a small town when he left and now it's huge. Rather disappointing to him. Funny how we expect and hope for home to be the same when we go back.
I live in a VERY small town. The epitome of a rural setting. The biggest employers here are the ranch that I work on, the school (to some degree) and the forest service. We have a bar, a gas station, a little store, a saddle shop, a library, and a post office. As I pointed out to my friend, at least if the bar stays open, we'll hopefully survive.
There are so many positive things to living in a small town and yet again, so many drawbacks. Your neighbors (and in a town this small, everyone is your neighbor) look out for you. If you break down, chances are you are going to hitch a ride with the next person that comes along because not only do you know them, but they insist. There is a strong sense of community. We take care of our own. Whenever someone is sick or hurt or dying, the community feels it as a whole, no matter who the ailing is, young or old. We hold community fundraisers for people with large medical bills. We offer our help, our food, our prayers, our grief to our neighbors when they need us. Walking into the store, the bar, the post office, there is always a plethora of greetings to be done.
Of course, there is the flip side. Everyone knows your business. There are some glancing sideways and talking about you out of the sides of their mouths. Some of them are friends, with whom you THOUGHT you shared true camaraderie. Most of them judge you just for something to do or didn't do, just something they heard. The "god squad" is particularly adept at this. I've had my share of being on the end of their holier-than-thou attitudes, which I find so gratingly irritating and hugely hypocritical. Good Lord, I refuse to believe they haven't heard the "judge not lest ye be judged" line. But oh well... You just brush their glares off and wait until the next scandal hits. You can't ever truly end a friendship in a small town. No matter what has been done to you or by you. People are not an expendable resource in small towns and you don't want to burn any bridges, lest you are standing on the side of the road when one of those bridges tumbles by.
Which leads us to the isolation of it all. Our town is perhaps 6 blocks long. No stop lights, nor stop signs (not even a 4 way!) make their appearance upon our main street. The speed limit is reduced to a mere 35 mph to avoid slaughtering residents (note the sarcasm, I think 35 is too high). Once you are outside of town, there are ranches and the occasional house every couple of miles or so, but you so very much don't want to be walking down a dark highway with our high population of cougars. Yes, cougars, mountain lions. Stealthy boogers. One lady in town put her little cocker spaniel out and heard a strange noise, she opened the door, mere seconds later, to find her precious little pet's head caught within the jaws of a female lion. They are a scary, shifty shadow. You are ALWAYS careful when you are on foot, outdoors, once the nights start getting cool. Up until June or July. And even in summer, you are not guaranteed a safe walk. The kids, playing at recess noticed a mama and two half grown kittens resting upon a haystack right behind the playground. When ODFW officials went to investigate, they discovered the cats had been living there for some time. I shudder to think...
But, I wouldn't change it. My boy is being raised within a community that still remembers the true sense of the word. He will grow up in a hard, unforgiving world knowing that in some places, neighbors still help each other out and notice when you are gone, when you are sick, when you are down and out. He will grow up thinking it normal to not only receive no less than 2 "Hi! How are you"s while getting his mail. He will know the power of forgiveness because it will be utilized often enough living in a small community. And overall, I think that he will have a greater respect for mankind, not the casual disregard I see so often when I visit the bigger cities.
To each his own, I suppose. Myself, I prefer this: the slow, crawl of day-to-day life that my town offers, the "hello"s, the knowing that when I need to, I can ask for help and will get it from my fellow community members, the way it just feels like mom's living room, the way it just feels like home.
Talking on Messenger with someone who lost everything they owned in Hurricane Katrina. He moved back home to Delaware from New Orleans. He was telling me that it was a small town when he left and now it's huge. Rather disappointing to him. Funny how we expect and hope for home to be the same when we go back.
I live in a VERY small town. The epitome of a rural setting. The biggest employers here are the ranch that I work on, the school (to some degree) and the forest service. We have a bar, a gas station, a little store, a saddle shop, a library, and a post office. As I pointed out to my friend, at least if the bar stays open, we'll hopefully survive.
There are so many positive things to living in a small town and yet again, so many drawbacks. Your neighbors (and in a town this small, everyone is your neighbor) look out for you. If you break down, chances are you are going to hitch a ride with the next person that comes along because not only do you know them, but they insist. There is a strong sense of community. We take care of our own. Whenever someone is sick or hurt or dying, the community feels it as a whole, no matter who the ailing is, young or old. We hold community fundraisers for people with large medical bills. We offer our help, our food, our prayers, our grief to our neighbors when they need us. Walking into the store, the bar, the post office, there is always a plethora of greetings to be done.
Of course, there is the flip side. Everyone knows your business. There are some glancing sideways and talking about you out of the sides of their mouths. Some of them are friends, with whom you THOUGHT you shared true camaraderie. Most of them judge you just for something to do or didn't do, just something they heard. The "god squad" is particularly adept at this. I've had my share of being on the end of their holier-than-thou attitudes, which I find so gratingly irritating and hugely hypocritical. Good Lord, I refuse to believe they haven't heard the "judge not lest ye be judged" line. But oh well... You just brush their glares off and wait until the next scandal hits. You can't ever truly end a friendship in a small town. No matter what has been done to you or by you. People are not an expendable resource in small towns and you don't want to burn any bridges, lest you are standing on the side of the road when one of those bridges tumbles by.
Which leads us to the isolation of it all. Our town is perhaps 6 blocks long. No stop lights, nor stop signs (not even a 4 way!) make their appearance upon our main street. The speed limit is reduced to a mere 35 mph to avoid slaughtering residents (note the sarcasm, I think 35 is too high). Once you are outside of town, there are ranches and the occasional house every couple of miles or so, but you so very much don't want to be walking down a dark highway with our high population of cougars. Yes, cougars, mountain lions. Stealthy boogers. One lady in town put her little cocker spaniel out and heard a strange noise, she opened the door, mere seconds later, to find her precious little pet's head caught within the jaws of a female lion. They are a scary, shifty shadow. You are ALWAYS careful when you are on foot, outdoors, once the nights start getting cool. Up until June or July. And even in summer, you are not guaranteed a safe walk. The kids, playing at recess noticed a mama and two half grown kittens resting upon a haystack right behind the playground. When ODFW officials went to investigate, they discovered the cats had been living there for some time. I shudder to think...
But, I wouldn't change it. My boy is being raised within a community that still remembers the true sense of the word. He will grow up in a hard, unforgiving world knowing that in some places, neighbors still help each other out and notice when you are gone, when you are sick, when you are down and out. He will grow up thinking it normal to not only receive no less than 2 "Hi! How are you"s while getting his mail. He will know the power of forgiveness because it will be utilized often enough living in a small community. And overall, I think that he will have a greater respect for mankind, not the casual disregard I see so often when I visit the bigger cities.
To each his own, I suppose. Myself, I prefer this: the slow, crawl of day-to-day life that my town offers, the "hello"s, the knowing that when I need to, I can ask for help and will get it from my fellow community members, the way it just feels like mom's living room, the way it just feels like home.
posted by Lori | 7:49 AM
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