Never Underestimate

When I moved to my small town nearly 8 years ago, I must confess, I felt like I was moving to outer Mongolia.  Having grown up in Southern California, lived in San Francisco, then Portland, Oregon, the idea of living in a town of 18,000 didn't sound very exciting.  But, the traffic in Portland was getting crazy as was the cost of living.  At the core of the issue was the public schooling which left much to be desired.  So, we packed up the last daughter, who was entering high school, and moved to eastern Oregon.

My friends pitied me.  I mean, who wouldn't?  There was nothing in this town!  The nicest restaurant was a Shari's.  The closest mall was a 40 minute drive and Costco, well, let's say you definitely had to plan your trips. But that wasn't even the worst of it.  Little by little I began to recognize the tiny snips of snobbery that would pop up over the 'big city' and all it had to offer versus the 'small town' and all its limitations.  I actually caught myself apologizing for the place I lived, making excuses for its, well, smallness!

I felt a little guilty about my attitude.  I mean, shouldn't I have a sense of pride about where I live?  Probably.  I actually wrote a blog about "You know You Live in a Small Town When...." which brought a touch of humor to the topic, siting all sorts of things like drive through animal feed stations and traffic jams brought on by goats in the road.  It helped......a little.  What didn't help was the fact that I'd moved from the lush, green side of the state to the dry, barren side of the state where everything has to be irrigated in order to grow.  Brown was just not my color.  I missed all those gorgeous trees!  But somewhere during all those times driving back and forth to Portland through the gorge to visit friends I came to appreciate the beauty in the browns.  I caught myself commenting to a friend the other day how I choose my interior home colors from the pallet of muted browns and greens that line the highways where I live.  Imagine that?  When I go to Portland, I actually look forward to returning home.  Wow.  When did that happen?  I guess the green got to be overwhelming.  Obviously I've adjusted to the landscape.

But I've learned a few other things about small places and the people who live there:  Never, never assume they are ignorant, backwards or behind the times.  I can actually puff myself up now and crow about my town.  We are in the forefront of some important advances.  I thought it was rather impressive a few years ago when my daughter, an IT person (from Portland, no less) told me about an article she'd read about the largest WiFi cloud in the world.  Guess where it is?  Yep....right here in my town.  So farmer John, who some people may think is beneath them, can sit in his field, open his laptop, control his irrigation system, or even take a picture of his crops and send it to one of his customers.  My police department is ahead of the game as well with laptops in their cars where they can file reports.

You can imagine my surprise also when a week ago I learned of another area where we are ahead of the game.  I had to have fingerprints for a background check.  The list of approved agencies from the capital city was extensive, but there was nothing listed that was close to where I live.  I  called Salem and asked if it was alright for me to go to my local police department to be printed and was reluctantly told, yes.  I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing since my new job depended on getting these prints done and processed in a timely manner.  I couldn't afford anything to go wrong and I was concerned that I wasn't going to one of their "approved" agencies that had the LiveScan machines.  I showed up for my appointment at the police department and was ushered into the room with the "machine".  Oh my goodness!  it was none other than a LiveScan!  I told my story to the officer about them 'not making the cut' on the list of approved agencies and he just laughed.  Apparently, my police department was the first one in the country to have this machine!  In fact, when Salem was determining whether or not to purchase one, they called here to ask their opinion.  Go figure!  But they didn't want to include them on the list of approved agencies.  A touch of snobbery there?  Possibly.

Do I still live in a small town?  Well, yes I do.  But it's a great little place live.  It still does take close to 40 minutes to drive to the mall, but I've learned to plan my trips to include Costco, the pet store and anything else in the general vicinity, even the possibility of dinner.  Is Shari's the best restaurant in town?  Not any more!  We have a great local place and more places opening up all the time.  We have awesome community events where I actually know the people in them and people take pride in them.  The high school football games are very well attended.  Church parking lots are full on Sundays, and other times during the week as well.  Community involvement is appreciated and encouraged.  The grocery store can be a social gathering place.  And we all seem to share the same sense of pride in this great little town we are building.  Are there still goats blocking traffic?  I wouldn't know.  I moved to a different neighborhood.