Small Town @ MindSay 
love
It seemed this weekend that the whole town of Brigham City, Utah, turned out to join in the tail-end of summer's festivities, called "Peach Days". This is when the local peaches are ready to come off of the trees and give the town a reason (and why not?) to celebrate the harvest and the joy of life that a living gives, especially from the labor of one's own hands.
There were booths selling all types and manner of goods, from trinkets to hand crafted paintings and artifacts, to food (including the delicious homemade peach cobblers for which people stood in line). Along with the air of celebration was a fair with rides for all ages, games of skill, a flower show, fashion shows, showing fashions for all age groups, a hypnotist, singing groups and so much more.
I enjoyed the culinary delights of one of the local restaurateurs, of pulled barbecued ribs (don't often get it, since hubby does not eat pork), home grown green beans, and potatoes, prepared with the skins on...along with cobbler, of course. :)
My husband was the one with the camera in his hand, so you can guess already, what his eyes spotted to snap....the beautifully preserved and souped up classic vehicles. He also took a few shots of the fair, and I am posting one here, so you can see the view of "my" mountains. I will never grow tired of their splendor.
.It seems like nothing has changed. Nothing except the gas prices. Some things, I suppose. New stores open. Old stores close. Styles change. However, the feeling never changes. The people don't change. Life is still and breathing slowly.
.I came home and kindly reminded my mother of a deal we had--I would come home for the summer to this place and try to find a job and she would, in exchange, pay for my gas and get me a gym membership. She now insists that the gym was never a part of this deal--only gas and Netflix (part of a later conversation). She began an unsolicited attack upon me, being incredibly melodramatic, making fun of me. She told me, yet again, that my standards are too high for a job. In other words, I won't apply at every business in town, just half of them. "You're won't get your hands dirty," she mocked. She actually suggested I work at Wal-mart or Sam's, to which I scoffed. I won't even buy something at Wal-mart unless I have to do so, much less work there. Personally, I'd rather not sell my soul to the devil. The fight reached it's climax when I very angrily shoved in her face the fact that she knows nothing about today's job market and that the job she currently holds isn't exactly the most competitive. Everyone knows the state of Texas will hire almost anyone to be a teacher who has a teaching certification and a bachelor's in anything. It was a low blow, but I was fairly upset. I couldn't believe she was acting this way.
.I had to get away again. Back out into my hometown. A chat with a friend. Dinner at the local franchise of the fried chicken fast food chain known for its emphasis on Christian values. Then I found myself in a park. I grew up in this town, so there are some areas that simply have my footprint all over them. I had been to the park many times before. Sheltered by swaying pines. Children's swingset. Caterpillar shaped monkey-bars. A tall slide. Big field. Winding trail. I had definitely been there several times before. Outings. A birthday party with the little girl named after a mythical Arthurian location. The time I sneaked out of a school with Shari. And today, there I sat in a swing talking about Palo Duro Canyon with Alexa and a stranger with small children. A boy and a girl.
.I fought with my mother again only a moment ago. I told her she upset me when she attacked me earlier, and she said she had no reason to apologize. I don't respect her, she told me. I talk to her like she's stupid--like her entire belief system is wrong.
.And maybe that's true. Maybe I've grown up too fast for this place--these people. Maybe I'm too jaded. Too pretentious. Too cynical for this place. What have I become? I'm not a persnickety Manhattan-ite, so why do I act like one? Am I too big for this little city? Am I too big for myself?
.I don't know... I still want that damn gym membership.
America's economy used to be modular, like it is in Europe. People centered themselves around towns, since travel was difficult and lengthy. Each town had stores where the locals could buy supplies. This lasted throughout the 50's, 60's, and even into the 70's.
My grandmother grew up and lived most of her life during this time. Her husband, my grandfather, ran a local auto repair stop/gas station and she was the town's postmaster. I remember how whenever it came time to buy a new appliance, my grandmother would always buy from the local appliance shop, even if she could have gotten that same Zenith television at Sears for a hundred bucks cheaper. She knew this, but bought from the local guys anyway because she cared more about supporting local businesses and the community than getting the best price. All the businesses downtown had done favors for my grandparents over the years, and my grandparents gladly reciprocated. My mother, however, is exactly the opposite. She is a deal hunter and will drive the lengths of the earth to save every penny she possibly can. She didn't grow up in a small town, but near inner city Detroit.
This modular, small-town economy became threatened in the 1980's with the rise of Wal-Mart and other big box retailers. The prices in the city became lower than those in the towns, and people in those towns forgot about "mom n' pop" on Main Street and made the 50, 60, or 70 mile trek to the big city to get their televisions, clothes, and gas grills at rock-bottom prices. Throughout the 80s and 90s, our retail economy went from being modular to monolithicaly centralized. As specialized small town stores went out of business, sprawling mega-marts took their place in population centers. Ma and Pa's Bike Shop became the sporting goods section of Wal-Mart. One-stop shopping became the primary consumer choice.
So what do gas prices have to do with all this? The centralized retail economy depends on one thing: cheap oil. The American system itself depends on cheap oil. That's why the majority of our middle-class population lives in sprawling suburbs instead of the inner city like in other countries. When the average family bought a house in the mid-20th century, they didn't care that they weren't within walking distance to the schools, the doctor's office, or the drug store. Gas was cheap, so they could just drive everywhere. We didn't build up much of a public transportation system because oil was cheap and everyone owned cars.
Today, oil isn't cheap. It's getting more expensive by the day. Even when adjusting for inflation, we are seeing the highest prices for fuel we've ever seen in this country. The higher the price of fuel goes, the less sense it will make to use half a tank of gas to save $50 on a DVD player. Driving habits will change. Consumers will consolidate trips, meaning fewer trips to the all-encompassing centralized retailers. The shops on Main Street will look at lot more appealing than the Mega-Mart 50 miles away as people will start taking fuel costs into account over those lower prices. Sure, large retailers like Wal-Mart move in to rural areas all the time, but they can't open a store in every small town. Higher oil prices may in fact return us to the days where towns and villages were nearly cut off from each other, making the small town business once again a necessity.
COTTONWOOD, Minn. - Four students were killed Tuesday in a school bus crash in southwestern Minnesota, authorities said.
The students were in a Lakeview School bus that was hit by a van around 3:25 p.m. on Minnesota Highway 23 north of Cottonwood, Minnesota State Patrol Lt. Mark Peterson said. The bus then collided with a pickup and tipped on its side.
For full story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23243603/
Some of you are going *gasp* what a small school and my Gods, those poor families. Then there is the rest of us that live in the small rural communities in and around MN, are hugging our children rather closer than normal today. Because those 4 students that were killed and have moved on to rest in their God's arms, were not the only victim's in this crash. I laughed when I heard down in OK and TX, when people said we are a small town and the town was 30 thousand plus people and then a few thousand more outside of the town. You see I live in pretty much the same size town that suffered this tragedy. And it isn't just the family's of those injuried or killed that suffer it is the whole town and the surrounding communities.
My town is 1000 plus or minus depending on the year and another few hundred in the outlaying countryside. Towns around my town range in populations of a few hundred to maybe a few thousand. That could have been my community's bus that was crashed into. That could have been my friends' children, it could have been another towns bus and carried my realitves children, it could have been my kids' classmates' siblings that ride the bus to the public school. You see in the "larger" towns that have 30 thou or more in population you have a connection of tragedy but there is going to be someone and some family in that town NOT affected. In towns and villiages that are small rural communities like Cottonwood MN, the tragedy is felt in a larger radious because literally EVERYONE knows EVERYONE even if it isn't personally. Half the towns this size are related to each other via marriage, immideate, or distant blood ties. The towns that surround communities of this size, know people intimitly, of, and can relate to this community due to blood ties, friendships forged in highschool, and county events. This tragedy that Cottonwood MN suffered the whole area in Southwest MN, is suffering because it could have been their kids and ten to one they knew or knew about the kids injuried or killed.
Not to mention rural communites in MN not apart of this area, SD, IA, ND, and NE are all sending our prayers and our blessings to not only the families that lost their bright lights of their children but to the families of the other children and to the whole of the communites that this tragedy will affect. We will hold our children a little bit closer today and be thankful that it wasn't our children and our school buses.
Prayers and Blessings going out to Cottonwood, MN. May Anu wrap the children in love, comfort and warmth that made their way to Her, and may the Gods comfort and help ALL the families in this horrible situation.
DC is a big city, but in many ways, it's very much a small town.
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