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Small-Town Life
Until we moved to our current home in 1996, my wife and I had always lived in cities or on military bases. Small town life was a revelation for us. We live in a rural area and I worked in a small-town high school for 16 years after leaving my corporate job. Going to town is always an experience, as everyplace we go is staffed by former students and their parents.
Waitresses know your name and usually have an idea what you will order. When we respond to medical or other calls for our fire department, we typically know the family, which is a big relief for people under stress. When I visit the schools in town (I’m on the school board), I see the children of my former students, and other former students work in the schools now.
I get why some kids feel stifled and want to move away, but many stay and others move back. There is a much stronger sense of community than I ever had in a suburb or some of the mid-size cities where we lived. I suspect that large cities naturally create that crazy left-wing politics. People are surrounded by others and yet live as if they are alone. When things like church parishes defined neighborhoods, people had that sense of community, but those days are mostly over.
Our veterinarian is a local boy and told me a story of how he once went to pick up the daughter of one of his teachers for a date. She said, “Brian, don’t do anything you don’t want me to know about because I will hear about it by 8 AM tomorrow.” He said “yes, ma’am” and behaved.
We live in Welfare, TX, and the schools are in nearby Comfort. Comfort schools have a total of just over 1,300 students K-12, living in an area of about 200 square miles.
My husband grew up in a small town. He knew, knew, that if he did bad stuff, his mother would learn about it at the beauty salon. Everybody knew everybody.
I grew up in Chicago, in the Brainerd neighborhood to be exact.
I walked a mile and a third most days to get home from grammar school. (Yes even in the snow in the winter.) Of course, cell phones were a distant futuristic item, portrayed by the wrist watch radio Dick Tracy had in the Sunday comics.
Yet none of us kids were on our own. If anything threatening happened, there were at least three houses on any city block where a housewife or older couple would come to our aid.
And each of us kids knew if we did anything untoward during that walk home, someone would be telling our parents by dinner time.
Decades later, when my spouse and I realized we were out of sync living in the SF Bay area, we happened to visit Lake County, 2 and a half hours NE of where we’d been living in Sausalito.
Lakeport reminded me so much of my old Chi town neighborhood. (The way it had been in the 1960’s – certainly not as it is now.)
Lake County is sort of losing its charm, due to so many who move out of SF area and bring their attitudes with them. But there is still that community feeling.
We don’t have the magnificent Lake Michigan of my childhood home, but we do have the largest fresh water lake in California. It is known across the nation for its bass fishing:
Small town life does carry with it that aspect of being in a goldfish bowl.
One example:
I had to have a tooth extracted a few years ago. It involved a minor operation on my gums and jaw. I tried to find someone to take care of a sick cat while I spent 36 hours in Santa Rosa.
I called about 5 people, explaining the minor operation I’d scheduled at an oral surgeon and the needs of my sick cat. Finally someone offered to help.
So after the procedure, my jaw was all inflamed and swollen. I stayed home a good 10 days. Once back in the Lake County world, I was approached by individuals who were friends of friends of friends.
“Gosh, Carol, I just didn’t think I’d see you up and around. You are looking Great!! I mean, really great!! Didn’t think I’d be seeing you this summer.”
“Thanks. You look good too. And you’re right, we don’t always run into each other.”
After about a week of this, I stopped the next person who offered so much admiration to inquire just what she had thought would keep me down.
“Well your jaw cancer, of course. But the prayer circle worked better than anyone expected!”
“Jaw cancer? But I didn’t have jaw cancer. I had a tooth that needed to be pulled. Under anesthesia.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! To think we all went to the trouble of having a prayer circle and what not. For a tooth being pulled! Well, I never!!” (Person stomping off in a major hissy fit.)
Of course, who knows, maybe if there hadn’t been a prayer circle, I might have ended up with jaw cancer by now.
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Does it catch many?