Not For Sale at any Price!

Friends on the Coast (either one or the other) are always asking me, "How can you live in a small town?" Trust me, it isn't hard. Small town society and culture is definitely different from the big urban scene....different in interesting ways.

It is said that in a small town that everyone knows everyone else's business. That is probably true but just because I know your business doesn't mean I admit to knowing or that I tell it. Several years ago, when our house was destroyed by fire, local news channels were (for vicarious reasons) trying to find the family. To this end, they asked a city official who promptly put them on hold, called the place where we were staying and asked if we wanted to talk to reporter "X". When told that we didn't,the city official said okay and hung up the phone. The reporter was told that nobody seemed to know exactly where we were but if he saw us, he would deliver the message. We saw that official a week later and for some strange reason, he had "forgotten" the reporter's name and phone number.

One day, an elderly friend called to ask for a ride from her apartment to the grocery store. By the time I got to her place, storm clouds were rolling in and by the time I drove the two miles to the grocery, it was storming quite heavily. I pulled as close to the door as possible to let her out of the car with her walker. When I stopped the car, a police car pulled up behind me with lights flashing. Then the officer spotted this tiny elder with her walker climbing out of my car. Flashing lights were turned off and the car's driver suddenly had some other crime to pursue. Common sense had prevailed over the "no parking or stopping in a fire zone."

The local Coptic (Eastern Orthodox) Church has a new building to replace their smaller (and much older sanctuary). They are holding their annual Egyptian festival this weekend to celebrate. I was driving past another church a half block away and I spotted this sign "Egyptian Festival - Park Here." You know..with all the public noise about another church trying to build a community center...and being loudly condemned for the project, the very large sign at a neighboring church in my small town gave me a little more hope for the future. (By the way, our town has a community education center built by members of the same church that wanted to build a community center in that large urban area and they have had their center for quite a while. They even had an open house last year and welcomed visits by local folk!"

How can I stand living in a small town? Trust me, my small town is not perfect but I would not trade it in for a million dollars!