When You Grown Up in a Small Town and Leave...

"I was born in a small town.  No smaller.  Nope.  Even smaller.  In the middle of Nebraska.  You've never heard of it."

It truly boggles peoples' minds when I tell them I'm from a town of 211 people.   Especially when I'm sharing it with coworkers on the 42nd floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan, a stone's throw from Central Park.  Most of them come from such far off places as "Upstate" and "Philadelphia." 

Then I prattle off my list of facts that are equally mystifying:

• I had a graduating class of 8 people.  8.  (However, this allowed me to be salutatorian and give the lamest, last minute speech ever; also I'm not counting the one kid who didn't walk in the ceremony, because I wasn't fond of him anyway)
• The nearest movie theater, fast food, or bowling alley was 65 miles away.
• I grew up on a cattle ranch.
• I could legally drive alone to school at age 14.
• My father made me pull wild marijuana so that it wouldn't spread. 
• We chopped our own firewood for heat.
• Cattle brandings were considered a social event.  Townspeople gathered, drank cheap beer, burned cattle flesh with a scalding iron, and threw calf-balls on the fire - then ate them right there.

What I also have found, 13 years removed, is that I'm the only one allowed to make fun of it (or others who grew up similarly).  Because here's the deal, it does have it's pluses.  Chiefly among them:

• Most people are so nice.  My theory is that it is because they rarely encounter each other.  Here I'm not ever sure if there isn't somebody sleeping in my closet.
• Nature.  Dear God, I remember that.  Tubing in the river is one of my favorite childhood memories. Also, yards.  Some places people get to have yards.
• Freedom.  I rode my bike everywhere.  I swam in the river without parental supervision.  Before I was even 10!  I even kayaked by myself when I was 13.  But that was against parent's wishes.
• Prices.  I think houses there are going for $12.99.
• Nostalgia.  I like it a whole lot more in retrospect.  Those wide open spaces can seem freeing now instead of suffocating.

But when you leave a small town and return for any reason, it creates an odd sensation.  Nearly all of my friends are gone, and the one that remains has made it clear that it's a temporary stay.  My grandparents have passed away, my parents have moved, but what remains is the very fabric of the town.  You have amazing salt-of-the-earth, God-fearing people on one hand and on the other you have your run-of-the-mill washouts.  (They don't call the Midwest the meth capital of the world for nothing.)  Lovely women and steadfast gentlemen I once knew still hug me and shake my hand as if I've never left.  And if someone hated me all through high school, odds are pretty excellent that they have a bowling ball sized beer belly, still say "Git er done!", and are out shooting pheasants for no real discernible reason. So, I guess life evens itself out.

And also, I'm pretty sure I buried a Folger's can as a time capsule somewhere on our old property.  If somebody finds it, you can keep the five dollars, but I want my D.A.R.E. t-shirt back.