How I Came to be a Small Town Girl: A Brief Introduction

A long time ago, in a dry, windy valley, my great, great, great grandfather, Lorenzo, settled my home town. Simply put, my family has lived in this town for generations.

 My mom and dad were next door neighbors and they had not-a-few squabbles. Such squabbles were spurred by acts such as the time my dad and his buddies pranked my mother by stealing her from her friends, taping her to the fence of the local gated community for the deceased, and then driving off, leaving her all alone. Never mind that it was Halloween night. Such badgering behavior solicited the message “Love Thy Neighbor” being written onto the window of my father’s residence. Unfortunately the message left anonymously, was not so anonymous in exposing the culprit—my mom soon found herself being packed off by him and his brothers to a nearby ditch full of irrigation water used for gardening. Pranks like these weren’t considered harassment back then.  Despite the tormenting nature of their adolescence, they eventually tied the knot several years down that somewhat jolty road.

Perhaps a small town isn’t for all young people, some might complain of insufficient entertainment or they might complain of the inconvenience of not having a convenience store or a gas station, but I would not have had it any other way. It has been said that it takes a town to raise a child—I cannot even begin to list the characteristics I have acquired as a result of being a small-town kid. Everybody knows everybody—I mean, don’t even be surprised if you receive a few calls and a few cards on your birthday from all of the ladies old enough to be your great grandmother. In my small town there are no sounds of traffic and when you hear a car, you get ready to wave because it will be someone you know. When you walk out your door you hear the open air flowing through the pine tree in your yard, you hear your best friend’s mom a few blocks down calling her home for dinner, you hear the neighbor’s cow bawling for its calf, you hear the neighborhood kids playing Steal the Flag, and sometimes late at night you hear Mary singing to her music that is up way too loud. It is Mary’s mother who, from her rocking chair adjacent to her cracked window facing the street, yells, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” And you respond because you know that you and your aunt, who used to play with Mary as a child, do look very similar. She calls you over and asks for your help feeding her cats; or she asks if you wouldn’t mind hanging the laundry on the line. If she is yelling from her porch, it is because she has locked herself out again and needs you to climb through the tiny bathroom window to let her in. Most often though, she hollers for you because she simply wants to talk or because she has made a pie that she wants to give away, complete with fall-esque designs in the top. You take the pie graciously, and even though you don’t always eat it, you put it on the counter and smile at it when you walk by for the next few days. But oh, if she found out you wasted it—well, that would be shameful. A depression child you see.

A small town life is a simple life—it really is. It has a slower pace, it really does, and I can compare it to an actual city experience because I do get out…I really do...on occasion. On that occasion, after being away for long, I yearn for the solitude and the small-town warmth. This warmth doesn’t come from being packed in next to a population of thousands of unknown persons, this warmth comes from the three-hundred acquaintances and friends who live at least a half-acre away. See, population for a city may just be a number, but for those of us in a small town, the population represents the many names and faces that have helped you come to love being a small town girl.