Small Town Legacies: What's Your Story?

people in my town crack me up

I live in a small town with lots of small businesses, and I am casual acquaintances with a lady in her early 50s or so, who is a clerk at a pet supplies store I go to. So I just saw a comment on on a local page from her personal Facebook page (as opposed to her business one) and being the busybody...

What I didn’t know was that when we moved out the woman next door snuck onto the property, dug up our rose bushes and planted them in her yard. Today the woman brought me a bouquet of white and pink roses to my new house. She told me how proud she was of the woman she had watched me become. She continued to tell me what she had done and that the roses were the same that I had planted all those years ago. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

I’m about to head out to go camping and I think I’m finally appreciating all the things that a small town and a small life can offer.  Since moving home from Seattle (I live in a tiny town about an hour away), I’ve been missing the ease of going to spontaneous shows, walking to get ice cream and pet people’s dogs, seeing movies and seeing friends from college everywhere I go.  Where I am now, there’s almost nothing to do if you look at it from a big-city perspective, and that was a depressing change for me.  Now, after a month at home of figuring out where I’m at in life, I’m appreciating our dumb but wonderful little carnivals and fairs, demolition derbies and races, gorgeous camping and hiking opportunities, and the value of time spent with friends and family in everyday life.  Reading and writing, learning to care for a garden, improving my health through good food and exercise, and spending time with my dog and cats are reminding me that you can make a good life anywhere, as long as you’re willing to find the best in things and learn to love what you have instead of wanting more.  Today I love what I have and accept that while the grass always seems greener on the other side, it rarely is.  My grass feels green enough today.

A day of shooting in my small boring town.

Old barber shop.

He said “I’ll tell you what… if you love me, whether you know it or not, I love you too.” It’s not easy being different in a small town.

What downtown economic development looks like in my town: three new grain silos at the elevator.

New Braunfels, Texas

Curious about this I am.

“Drink Coke”. Canon FT, Fujifilm 200.

Nice try Indiana.

featuring marie

Delta, OH - July 2014

(teacakemix lives in a lovely small town in rural Ohio that until recently only had McDonalds) teacakemix: Oh! Oh! Did I tell you we got a Starbucks? anthogna: HOLY SH*T [this is huge] teacakemix: It's one of the ones embedded into the Grocery Store. And it's AMAZING anthogna: Yes, I imagine it would be. teacakemix: The Starbucks was built, and then, WILD HIPSTERS APPEARED. anthogna: [imagining what would be expected of "hipsters" in teacakemix's community] ha ha teacakemix: I went to get in line, and there was a kid in front of me with the skinniest of skinny black jeans, big gauges in his ears, black framed glasses and a t-shirt with Abraham Lincoln that said 'I drop beats not bombs' anthogna: ... I ... wow. [totally didn't expect this level of hipster] teacakemix: WHERE DID HE COME FROM? It was like he spontaneously came to life near Starbucks. Like mice in a pile of rags.

Gloomy it is. But this is my idea of a perfect rest day.