Purple Love

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Nobody knows why the clouds appear and many scientific investigations have come up empty.

For those of us living in the valley the clouds are not a mystery but is simply a part of us and we love it. Very few people who grow up under the “Purple Love” will ever leave it for long. Quite often our young people will go to the outside world to find their place in the world. A few have been away for their entire working lifetime, returning to live under the cloud in their retirement. Of those that leave there are very few who do not eventually return and usually they don’t return because they can’t or at least they can't return while they are still living. Almost everybody eventually returns, usually they will return to the home where they grew up but not always. The amazing part of the children growing to adulthood and then starting their own families is that they often live in a home very similar to the one that grew up it.

I have lived in the Purple Valley all my life, except for 6 weeks. When I was 18 the draft was still active and I joined the Navy rather than waiting to be drafted by the Army. During basic training I had a small cardiac event. The Doctors examined me every way possible at that time and finally determined that I had a small heart defect. It turned out to be something that could cause me to blackout for a few seconds but since it only happened in extreme stress I was ok for an uneventful normal life. So, the Navy said, thanks but no thanks and I came home never having to worry about a draft board again.

My family was worried and ecstatic but that soon changed to “So, what are you going to do?”. I had been only a mediocre student and would much rather be building something that doing anything in a book I went to work for an Uncle in his small construction outfit. It was while working there that I learned that the residents of Purple Valley did not want a lot of change in appearance and function. The only big change I remember was going to the open concept for the family areas and that took hold like a match in dry grass.

So we built houses with little differences, move a door from here to there, add a couple feet to the family room, make the bathrooms roomier, etc. We used only the latest and the best of the internal fixtures following good practices in all constrtion disciplines including heating, plumbing and electrical even to the point of recently making each home WiFi ready. Our customers loved our houses and that business has thrived.

But how about the cloud, you must wonder how the cloud fits in? Well the Purple Cloud is the image of good luck and love. For example, in the valley, of course, we have weather just like everyone else but ours is friendlier. When we need rain it rains all night. In the winter we get snow but it is a couple inches at a time and then it seems to always quits snowing at about 6 AM.

When there are disagreement between residents here they get resolved without any physical contact or even coarse words it is what some would call “quite civilized”. This extends everywhere from the lowest income groups and into the highest income groups. A couple decades ago the people of the Purple Valley discontinued local taxes of all kinds, when the annual budgets are posted people just sign up to pay what they can afford to cover what is needed amazingly there is always a surplus.

Some jobs are simply unfilled in the valley, such as Police Officers who are doing double duty in the Fire Department and even then it is a rather laid back occupation.

Just like everywhere else Spring is filled with young people in love and many of those “First loves” hold true. There are weddings almost every single weekend under the Cloud of Love and those married under the cloud stay together. The divorce rate for our valley is close to zero. The only exceptions are when folks leave the valley then the divorce rate for those couples very closely matches the rate everywhere else.

When you come to our valley be prepared to love deeper and longer. Never expect a conflict or so much as a heated argument and be prepared to want to stay.

We are the people of the Purple Valley and we love it here.