Small town America
November 21, 2005
This morning I drove into Hopewell, NJ to find a NAPA Auto Parts Store to get a bulb for my headlight. And I realized something.
I like small towns.
Now, I love big cities, and the rush you get, and the excitement, and the cultural opportunities and the restaurants, and…yah, you know all that they have to offer.
But there is something about small towns. There was something about my time living in Hagerman, ID and working in Wendell, ID that I loved so much, even if small-town church politics (and small-town social-politics, for that matter) did get to me every now and then. I loved knowing that I could find the same woman working in the Post Office every day and that she’d always be friendly to me. I loved knowing that my bank tellers at US Bank in Wendell would deposit my checks, but they also wanted to know how I was (and even sing Happy Birthday to me when they found out it was birthday checks I was depositing). I loved (most of the time) that I knew I could see friends and people from the church when I went to shop at Simerley’s. I loved knowing that the one cop who would always see me speeding went to our church, and he had a lot of grace with me (I also loved knowing that if you saw the Wendell cop at one end of town, you were safe to speed in the other half of town). I loved calling up Papa Kelsey’s Sub Shop in Wendell and they knew from the sound of my voice who I was and what I wanted to order.
Who knows where Sarah and I are going to end up (we certainly don’t) but I do know that if we felt called to a smaller town for a season of our lives…I think that’d be just fine.
Tags: Small-Town
Posted in General
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
November 21st, 2005 at 5:42 pm
adam, i am so with you.
my wife and i go through country mode and city mode. country mode is the longing for a simpler, easier, little house on the prairie existence; where a hard day’s work involved physical exhaustion. and other times we enjoy the excitement, the arts, the many faces, and the go out and conquer the world existence of the city.
right now, i am in country mode. i want to go home, sit infront of the wood stove and read ‘the boxcar children’ to my kids.
unfortunately, i don’t have a country home, a wood stove, a copy of ‘the boxcar children,’ or children…but someday!
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:01 am
My first church was in Schaghticoke, NY (population about 700). Wonderful people. Exhausted pastor. I stayed a month short of 5 years (which was 3 years longer than the two pastors before me and the 5 after me (some staying less than 1 year).
Advantages: Diner across the street from manse. Volunteer Fire Department members also church members. Could hear County Fair carnies with megaphones lure fair-goers to their booths while lulling off to sleep every Labor Day weekend.
Disadvantages: Diner across the street from manse. Volunteer Fire Department members also church members. Could hear County Fair carnies with megaphones lure fair-goers to their booths while lulling off to sleep every Labor Day weekend.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:13 am
You know what are really the best, though. ‘cosmopolitan’ small towns. All the culture, none of the traffic.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:49 am
Matthew, what are some towns you’d consider “cosmopolitan small towns”??
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:14 pm
I have always loved the feel of small towns and wanted to move there and really experience it. I love road trips and I remember the many we would take as a family when I was younger.
I ALWAYS felt comfortable in those small towns. You would think in those smaller settings one would feel more the outsider, but I have yet to experience that.. and that has always spoken volumes to me.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:12 pm
I can think of a couple, lots of these kind of town either grow too big or become really touristy, though. Ganges, on Saltspring Island out in British Columbia. Hope, BC. Canmore, Alberta. Harrison Hot Springs, BC. I’d say Moscow, Idaho, but that’s more of a city I guess. Often University towns. The fictional town of Sicily, Alaska from the old TV show “Northern Exposure” was definitely what I was thinking of. National Geographic did a story on these kind of towns… mostly cities now. Athens, Georgia.