There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to opinions of life in a small town, either you love it or hate it. I wouldn't leave here for all the money in the world permanently, although winning the lotto would lead me to cruise the road from Angus to Nottinghamshire a little more often, with side trips to Somerset and a few other places to pay visits to some forum posters. My dads sister on the other hand once referred to our small community as "the armpit of the world" due to our lack of culture.
Nothing moves me like seeing how our small town and the surrounding community of farmers will pull together to help those in need, everyone will put aside their differences and pitch in. I have seen this all my life, but only in the last 10 years have I really grown to appreciate it. Be it a house burning down or a serious illness or accident, people come out of the wood work to lend a hand, I have seen everything from the community raising $100000 to aid with a bone marrow transplant to neighbors getting together to plant and harvest two different years for a man who was too ill to do it himself.
Once again we are faced with the prospect of one of our own falling ill and needing help. The owner of our local "pub" as you would call it has had a myriad of health problems attack all at once, from Lyme disease to Leukemia. The bills are mounting for he and his wife. I can always be counted on to donate a hog for a fundraising hog roast, I justify that in my mind by thinking and hoping that should I find myself in that position, others would do the same for me, not to mention of course it is the Christian thing to do. 400 pounds of meat will be cooked Saturday by the fellow who owns our phone company and the community will gather to throw some dollars in the hat to help one of our own. Shows the true spirit of America I think, one the BBC rarely shows, an America just as foreign to New York city as it is to London.
So, when you read on blogs, or watch something on the BBC about the excess of America, how we are self centered and care for no one but ourselves, think of a tiny community nestled in the eastern edge of the Kansas Flinthills where the 1200 or so people do care about each other when the chips are down, and will be dining on smoked pork Saturday evening and singing Karaoke( progressively worse as the beer gets downed I should think) while we raise money for someone we care about, certainly not the most sophisticated or cultured gathering, but in my opinion some of the very best people in the world. Even God has lent a hand today,as the snow I feared has not materialized, making the hauling of the hog to the butcher much safer and less stressful.