I imagine to some people living in a small town in just not their ideal lifestyle. A lot of people, probably a significant amount, prefer to live where they are minutes away from an Outback Steakhouse or some place to shop other than the local Wal-Mart. But to me, I don’t think there is any place else that I would rather have spent a majority of my life. I grew up in a country setting complete with a farm and gardens to each side of me where people worked out in them every day. I played in mud holes, rode dirt bikes through the fields, swung on grapevines and caught crawdads in the creek below our house. I never felt like I missed out on anything then and even more so now I realize what a wonderful childhood I had growing up being able to have those “luxuries”.
I can remember going shopping with my mom to the Five & Dime store in town and thought that was the greatest thing. Then when I got older I was able to take my granny to the old Sloan’s store to get her groceries. There would be someone in front of us a lot of times that was buying “on credit” and the cashier would just write their name in a notebook and how they owed or what they got.
Today while the rest of the world is caught up in the hustle and bustle of trying to keep up with the Jones’ or should I say the modern day term – keep up with the Khardashians; I relish in the fact that I live in the quiet little town that I do. There’s still the local store up on the hill where you can go see Roger and still buy something on credit. There are plentiful gardens in the summertime at what seems like every other house that I see each morning on my way to work. For the most part, a lot of kids still ride their dirt bikes – well until they turn 16 then it’s their Ford, Chevy, or Toyota 4-wheel drive pick-up trucks. Everywhere you go there is someone that you know that wants to chat and visit a while. We have the local man that we refer to as “Mousie” that walks the sidewalks every morning in the town where I work. Every time you see him he throws up his hand and waves at you like he has seen someone of great importance or famous. You can’t help but smile every time; because he just makes you feel good.
This morning one of my children’s teachers sent me a text to inform me that my son had not completed his homework last night. I thought to myself how nice it is to live in a community that the teachers are so in touch with their student’s parents that they take the time out of class to call or text to let you know there is a problem. When you live in a smaller community you have that added advantage as a parent of either being friends with your child’s teacher, going to church with them or both and you can rest easy knowing they will watch after your children.
We parents all stick together, we report on each other’s children if we see something that isn’t quite right, we car pool each other’s kids to and from practices when someone has to work late, and we treat each other’s kids as our own. We have our own little group at ballgames that sit and laugh and have a great time socializing while we cheer on not just our own children, but each other’s too. We hug each other’s kids, feed them, keep an eye for them and love them.
Yes, I imagine being able to drive to the mall in 10 minutes might be nice. Going to Red Lobster at the spur of the moment would be pretty wonderful. But having what I have here certainly makes up for those things. Although my dream is to move to the beach in 4 years, I imagine that I will still have to come back here from time to time - because I’m sure that as wonderful as it will be living at the beach - I might just need to be reminded what I was blessed with for all these years.
