Small Town Lessons

People have a strange perception of what it is like to grow up in a small town. Some people believe that it is boring. Some people believe that there is this wonderful sense of community. And some people are just completely put off by the very concept.

I have lived in small towns my entire life, with the exception of my short time in the city for my education. And I have to say that I would choose a small town over a big city any day.

Sure there is an appeal to the activity and the connectedness of a city. You can take a bus or walk anywhere. There is always something to do. There are always people to see or talk to. Everything is always open, somewhere. But that fast pace of life is just not for me.

In small towns, the streets roll up after dark. The street lights come on and the kids go home. A few of the older children may stay out late to play, but cars won't crowd the streets and families have mostly retreated to their houses.

In small towns, kids still play outside. It didn't matter if you had no neighbours or you lived in town and knew everyone on your block. You played outside after school and on weekends. Watching TV or playing video games was reserved for early mornings and just before bed or rainy days. It was not an everyday practice.

In small towns, you learned to run errands for your parents at a young age. There is less fear around sending your ten-year-old down the street to get milk or bread because the dairy owner knows you and your child and the baker does too. As a kid, you may not have a clue who they are, but they'll keep an eye on you.

In small towns, you make your own fun. Yes, life can be boring when there is no movie theatre or mall or arcade. But there were soccer fields and parks and baseball diamonds. There were trails for hiking and lakes for fishing. There were four wheelers and snowmobiles. And you had your imagination if all else failed. We were a creative bunch of kids out of necessity.

In small towns, you learned that your parents worked hard outside of the home and, therefore, you needed to help at home. There were always plenty of people to remind you of how hard your parents worked. There were always people to ask you if you were doing your chores. And you didn't get paid for them. Well, maybe some kids got allowances, but I definitely didn't. Your allowance was the right to be able to live in the house you were living in. So enjoy it.

In small towns, things move a little bit slower. This is something you really don't appreciate until you leave a small town. You don't notice it as a child as you run and play. But when you leave a small town and move to a city you miss the slowness, the calmness that is the small town environment.

In small towns, you can see the stars. This is something that I took for granted. This is something I never noticed before. But when you leave your clean country air and move to a city you lose the ability to see a full night sky. You can't stand in your yard and look up at the constellations the way you did as a kid when you're in the city. I missed that more than I thought I would miss anything.

In small towns, you wave because it's polite, not because you know the person. A car drives by and you're walking down the street, you wave to the driver. It's a friendly thing to do. It's a gesture and nothing more. Sometimes you may actually know the person driving the car, but, for the most part, you are just being neighbourly. This is considered strange in the city.

In small towns, you talk to strangers. Sometimes you talk to strangers because they know you and you don't know them. They know you as the son or daughter blank or the grandson or granddaughter of blank. So it's polite to talk to them when they approach you. Other times, you talk to strangers because they are tourists to the town. Many small towns run on tourism and it's entertaining to talk to tourists. I've met people from all over the world that way.

In small towns, you learn to fear what lives in the woods more than you fear any person. People can be terrifying. People can do atrocious things. But as a person, you are potentially a match for another person. What are you to do against a bear, a pack of wolves, a cougar, an angry moose? Exposure, dehydration, accidents—a lot could happen when you are out in the woods. It's not people you should worry about, it's nature.

In small towns, you learn to see the world differently. You learn to appreciate the smaller things in life because you don't have access to all of the finer things. The city is far away so you make due with what you have. And you learn to appreciate what you have.

Some people spend their whole childhoods dreaming of leaving the small towns they grow up in. Some people can't wait to escape and find something bigger, better, more excited. I can't blame them for chasing that thrill. But for me, it will always be small towns. The community, the connection, and the slower pace has a sense of appeal that the city just could never bring.

In a small town is where I belong and in a small town is where I will stay. The only question that remains to be answered is which small town?