Wednesday, January 31, 2007

My town is so small...

How small is it?

Small town life in rural Georgia is all it’s cracked up to be. My former town was Gray, Maine which at pop, 7,500, locals there dubbed a small town. That town is quite different from my small town here, which has a population of 400. Even in the unincorporated section of town the population still barely reaches 1,000. Cumberland County Maine has a quarter of a million people. Our entire county of five towns and miles of land is only 25,000. It's small.

It’s so small that: the parking spaces in front of the Post office on the main drag are vertical, not parallel. When you leave, you have to back out into the main street. It’s not a problem.

It’s so small that: On the Post Office’s Christmas busiest mailing day of the year, there was no line at the counter.

It is so small that: when you pass a vehicle on a rural road, the other driver waves.

It’s so small that the hardware store guy stands outside to chat with a buddy while you shop, and just holler when you’re ready to pay.

It’s small and it’s great. Now, usually when people move in from the ‘city’ to a small town they want the rural aspects but they also bring big-city wants with them, like sewer service, trash service, foreign films, delis, cappuccino. Then they complain when the taxes go up. Or when a charming someplace or there gets paved over. I don’t want any of that and I don’t miss it.

I was driving to an adjacent county I hadn’t visited before and in that county is a small city. Its main drag had the usual array of stores and restaurants. And there, forgotten by me for many months, was a McDonald’s! I thought back, where is the closest McD’s to where I live? This one, 30 miles away, and on the other side of the county 30 miles in the other direction. That’s it! It’s nice to move to a place where you can forget about fast food. Fast food means fast living and I guess I moved to the right place to slow down.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its so small the mice are hunched over.
-Chuck

Anonymous said...

Off subject...
I just made a trip accoss NC to VA thru the mountains...awesome view. It's interesting visiting country side not affected by the last major major climate change. The differences between valley's and mountains is so significant. Here in Maine the glaciers, or the last global temperature change, changed the physicality. The current change in temp (.06 degree) over the last hundred years is insigificant. Besides, we're taking for granted the guy who had to go out to the out house to go to the bathroom to give us the temp 100 years ago (they had no inside plumbing). Let's assume he was doing his best...tecnology suugests maybe the future temp readings would be more accurate. And, if not, why in 1975 all the same scientist groups suggest dropping ashes and soot on the pole TOO WARM UP THE INCREASING ICE!?

Anonymous said...

Spent the weekend touring small towns in Franklin and Somerset county. Was wonderful!

Affamato Arts Etc said...

A person in Gray, Maine told me once, "You can't swing a dead cat in this town without hitting one of my relatives."

Anonymous said...

The Libby's schedule family reunions around Town Meeting times just to save on gas.