Small town living

Americans think that they’d prefer to live in a small town, according to a Pew Research Center study. I grew up in a small town–about 1000 people at the time. It’s now probably closer to 800. Last time I checked, Google Earth couldn’t provide a close-up view of the area. It’s just not that important. So why would someone want to live in the middle of nowhere?

It was great to be a kid in a small town, as long as you behaved well and your older siblings had behaved well. I recall a friend being called to the front of the room to demonstrate how we’d be using flash cards. All her sisters had had the same teacher and she announced something about how she knew my friend would do well because her sisters all had. It wasn’t so great for another classmate of mine. Our teacher knew his family, of course, and didn’t like them. She reminded him all the time of how he came from a family of losers. He learned to be a loser, too.

My sister-in-law’s mother could have been my 5th grade teacher and I was hoping that her aunt would be my 6th grade teacher. But we moved before that could happen. Her aunt had lived in our house at one time and told a wonderfully chilling story about how not two women had died in my sister’s bedroom. I treasured that fact.

I knew not only the people, but their pets. Actually my sister was the one who knew all the dogs by name. We would ride or drive our ponies through town and out into the country. You could ride right up to the ice cream shop and get the best old fashioned toffee sundaes. People sat out on their front porches and waved as you went by, or you sat on your porch and waved as people biked by. If a dog you knew ran by, sometimes you’d call to it, too.

I’m glad I grew up as a small child there because I could run all over town and walk the railroad tracks and only had to worry about being home by supper. But I’m also glad I left. As a teenager you were either a breeder or a boozer. Since I don’t enjoy alcohol, I would have been a breeder. I’m sure I’d have tried to prove myself by having sex early and often. I’d probably be divorced and taking care of my grandkids if I ‘d stayed. Hopefully I’d have a job. According to the town’s stats, it would probably be in health care. Egads to all that.

But I might also have had the opportunity to be a cheerleader. I was first chair clarinet when I left my village. When I started in my suburban/bedroom community school, I was last chair, and never made it past the third chair row. I would have learned to cook since there was no culture of going out for dinner. Maybe a Friday night catfish special once in a blue moon. And I probably would have learned how to can. I can tell you that it might sound romantic, but it’s a lot of sweat. It’s nice having labeled jars in the basement or cellar or cave, but it’s a hell of a lot of work. And it’s terribly messy when a pressure cooker blows up.

Entertainment options were bowling or roller skating. Forget theater, orchestras, dance, or museums. But I do recall horse shows, the county fair, and square dances. We had 4-H and Scouts. And at home we played a lot of cards. That part really lives up to the romance.

The belief that small towns support the family is probably true. You’re pretty much stuck with your family members. It might happen that the community will rally around you in a time of crisis or they might devour you. Gossip flies in a small town and if it’s not entertaining enough, people will embellish. Crime statistics are low, but personal emotional and economic attacks don’t make those stats. Our family made the editorial section of the newspaper when we got a donkey that woke up the editor with its morning braying. When we were moving because of my father’s job loss, the last rumor we heard was that we were moving the Kentucky to raise horses. That was a better story than the truth.

Driving through the small towns I used to know, I see huge homes in the middle of what used to be corn fields. And I’ve seen corn fields where there used to be homes. Neither seems healthy to me. The people moving into our small towns don’t seem to join the town. The people with money who build further and further away from the metro don’t buy houses with a sidewalk in front or an open front porch. They build new huge homes out where they can have plenty of land to separate them from the townspeople. They send their kids to private school. They don’t have homes where a kid is going to stop and knock on the door and ask the use the bathroom. Instead of a backyard vegetable garden, they have a landscaped front yard.

These new small town immigrants follow the romance of a close knit community, and they isolate themselves from it. They don’t know the embarrassment and pleasure of having your rooster get loose and chase people off the sidewalk in front of your house. They don’t know about being underage but trusted to buy cigarettes for your grandmother. I’ve romanticized the past, too. But I love the convenience of Chipotle and bookstores and a choice of plumbers too much to go back.