The last few days we have heard quite a bit about the virtue of living in small town America, as if Mayberry is real, and Lake Wobegon is Oh-so-here. Well, I have news for those who have never lived in a small town - that is actually sort of how it is. Except when it's not. Which is often. Meaning, small towns, like everywhere, have good points and bad points, and usually the perception is not the reality.
I grew up in a small town. I am a hick, in fact. I know. Gasp. While my big city exterior may have confused you, I am, in fact, a farm girl at heart. I graduated from high school with 85 other silly teenagers, which means I was about as prepared for the real world as a less engaging Opie Taylor. Naturally, in response, I went to college, got married, had kids, and moved to the big city.
Raising city kids, I have now seen the other side, and I have realized there are a lot of pressures in growing up in a metropolitan area. But don't kid yourself, small towns have dramas of their own, and the shoals can be just as dangerous to navigate. You haven't lived until your misdeeds preceded your arrival home, because six people called your mother before you could get to her first.
Just kidding. I never did anything to warrant that kind of reporting. Coincidence? I don't think so.
When I go back to my small town to visit my mom, I am instantly returned to childhood, a time when walking down the street almost guaranteed you would run into five people you knew, some of them related. My kids are always amused to go visit their Grandma, although it's not nearly as fun since Bergh Drug Store went away. We never fail to see people who remember me from when I was little, and they are amused to find out I was not always as perfect as I am now. Okay, I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty fair. Well, I'm not too bad. Uff, all right, I'm good enough. Happy now?
My little community had about 1500 people living inside the city limits, and a lot more living on the farms that surrounded the town. We had 13 Lutheran churches, one Catholic church, two grocery stores, a hardware store, a drug store, and a five and dime. We also had a men's clothing store and a women's clothing store. This was before there was a mall on every corner, and buying something by mail was a Big Deal. So going to town was pretty exciting for a kid. You just never knew what would happen In Town.
Of course, it was not as exciting as when my mother was a girl. She has regaled us with stories of her exploits walking the busy streets of that same small town on a Saturday evening in her youth. NO, not those kinds of exploits.
When my mother was young, going to town was an exciting adventure, because everyone else went to town one evening a week, too. Stores stayed open late on Friday night so everyone could come in from the country to buy groceries and whatever else they needed. So on a Friday night in the summer, the streets would be full of people, shopping, talking, socializing. It was a community event, just like you would imagine in small town America. While the adults would visit and catch up on the news of the week, the teens would stroll the sidewalks, walking up one side of the street and down the other, checking out the competition, and what everyone else's families were up to. I am not joshing, this was big fun.
It was during the Great War, World War II, and everything was in short supply, including money. Walking the street was free, and it allowed you to share your life challenges with other people who had it just as bad as you did. My mother and her siblings did not just hop into the car [or was it a buggy? That could be just a nasty rumor....] and run off to town any old time they were bored. That was something that required planning and coordination, so everyone would have an opportunity to do whatever they needed to accomplish.
On the upside, everyone knew everyone, which means everyone knew everyone else's children, too. So crime was not exactly a wave back then. More of a twitch, really. One that got back to your parents long before you did. And parents back then weren't afraid of hurting their children's delicate egos, either. They punished, because they wanted to be sure you not only never did something like that again, they didn't even want you entertaining the thought.
My uncle Fritz was a bit of a handful, as we have heard him tell it. I have known him to allow that it's entirely possible if he had been raised in a city instead of on a farm, he may have been classed as a juvenile delinquent. Which is pretty ironic, since he grew up to be a truly God fearing, fantastic person, who volunteers in a prison ministry, among other things. Anyway, he has a few stories to tell, but the pertinent one for today is about a field, a horse, a wagon, and a couple of boys who were not kept adequately busy.
It was, as I recall the story, [and rest assured, if I have the details wrong, I have several relatives who will be happy to weigh in and correct me,] a nice sunny late afternoon, and my uncle and his friend from down the road, who went by the name of Buddy, were together, thinking up mayhem they could commit. I am not entirely sure what got into them, but on this day, I guess Satan held out a particularly shiny, juicy apple, and they could not resist taking a bite.
Anyway, Buddy's dad had just spent the day setting up shocks of oats in the field between the two houses. [I am going to let my uncle tell the rest of this story, because he tells it better than I do.]
But first, a shock, for any youngsters who may be reading this, were back breaking work, done by hand. Here is an explanation of what they are, and how they are done, straight from my very own mother. Consider yourselves fortunate to be able to hear from her.
Starting with the grain field, let's say an oats field, when the grain is ripe and golden it is cut with a binder. It's called a binder because there is twine in it that ties the grain stalks into just the right size bundles. These bundles when tied come out of the machine and just lie there on the ground. As soon as possible the shocker, the person who does the work, picks up a bundle one in each hand and places them together, one standing against the other, so they're leaning against each other. Then he takes two more and places them next to the two that are standing together. He probably will take two more and set it along side the four that are standing. When finished, this is called a shock.
After a week or two, when the grain is very dry, the farmer comes with his team of horses and a wagon and loads the shocks onto the wagon. He brings them to the barn yard where the threshing machine is located, and the bundles are tossed into the machine where the grain is separated from the straw. The grain comes out a leg of the threshing machine into a pick-up truck that brings it to the granary and the straw is blown onto a pile to be used in the winter for bedding for the cattle.
The oats are stored in the granary to be ground into feed for the chickens and the other farm animals, ie cows, pigs, horses.
Two bundles are usually saved to be put on two stakes that are attached on either side of a small out building such as a small corn crib which will feed the birds in the winter. These bundles are usually put out on Christmas Eve Day.
Here is the rest of the story, in my uncle's words. "We were driving a team of horses. So when we saw this inviting field of shocked oats, we said, 'lets do it.' What happened is that as the horses straddled the row of bundles in full gallop, the bundles would go airborne behind us. Quite a sight." Apparently, this was pretty big fun, right up until they realized Buddy's dad was watching them wend their way through that field, stalks flying every which way behind them, like a little hurricane moving across the landscape.
I will allow my uncle some dignity, and spare him the humiliation of public exposure on the discipline front, but I think it's safe to say that was a very long evening living with the land. And I think it's a sure bet he never did that again, or anything remotely like it. Which makes me think, perhaps those old people, our grandparents, might have known a thing or two about child rearing.
My own parents were not exactly worried about the psyche of their hot house flower, either. Punishment was doled out pretty liberally, as earned, and I don't remember anyone feeling bad about it, either, except maybe me. Well, probably not even me, since I usually knew it was all my fault, anyway. My mother, in particular, was never shy about who was in control, and it was not me. So if I was foolish enough to think I was going to be one up on her, I would soon be thinking again. However, that did not prevent me from trying. On one notable occasion, I was probably about three, I actually turned to a life of crime.
There was one grocery store in town that had a very sweet clerk, who would slip me a small piece of candy whenever we went through her check-out. Like most children would, I really looked forward to that candy, and didn't realize that it was a gift, freely given, not an entitlement. On that fateful day, we went to the store, and the piece of candy was not forthcoming. I'm not sure why, but for whatever reason, it seemed she wasn't going to give me my prize. So I figured I would just take the pressure off her and go ahead and select my own piece of candy.
Naturally, since I was choosing, I went for the biggest piece, a chocolate bar, the largest one on that rack. I plucked it from it's box, and had just the smallest twinge of fear that perhaps I had overstepped, but I really, really wanted it, so I overrode my misgivings. We walked out to the car, my mom and I, with the candy bar held sort of out of mom's line of sight, just in case I had pulled a bone headed move. I was already developing a keen sense of when I was poised for big trouble, and by that point, my radar was on high alert.
Is anyone surprised to learn that my mother spied that candy bar, and immediately honed in on the implications? Like my brother, she tries to make sure things are clear, so she asked me where I got the candy bar. She knew she hadn't paid for it, and I was not independently wealthy, so it was probably pretty clear to her that I had walked out of that store with stolen goods. But I was not all that bright, so I said, "She gave it to me." I still remember that tight, pinched look my mother got on her face, disappointment and anger and irritation all rolled into one. Even then, I could tell she wasn't going to buy that whopper.
My mother, fair minded as always, gave me another chance to do the right thing, and said, "She who?" There I was, caught with the ill gotten gains melting in my hand from the heat of all my lies, when I suddenly had the enlightened thought that the truth may serve me better in the current predicament. So I bravely admitted my lie, said I had taken it, and hung my head, no doubt going off like a sprinkler to put out the fire from the hot goods I was holding.
My lovely mother was not impressed. Have you noticed how all the parenting books these days advise parents to notice only the positive things their kids do, reward the appropriate behavior, and ignore the negative? If you don't notice, goes the theory, it will go away. I personally have not noticed that working especially well at the grocery store, Target, or church, although I have observed that today's parents do seem to have substantial hearing loss. My mother was not blind, deaf, or stupid. I was caught chocolate handed, and I was not getting away.
She marched me right back into that store, talk about your walk of shame, and made me 'fess up about what I had done. I am sure that I looked miserable and pathetic, because that is certainly how I felt, but I don't recall anyone going easy on me. The clerk took the candy bar back, shooting disapproving glances at me, while everyone in town certainly knew of my disgrace. Or at least, so I imagined. We went home, and I don't remember any further punishment, so I suspect my mother knew the humiliation had been what I needed, and decided to let those consequences speak for themselves. And I am here to tell you, I don't take a penny off the sidewalk today without checking around to be sure I'm not grabbing it from it's rightful owner.
I don't pretend to have all the answers to life's serious problems. The world is a much different place than it was when I was a child, and more different yet from when my mother was young. When you are on the outside looking in, small towns may give the illusion that they are a place where time stands still, that Mayberry can be found in rural America even today, and Aunt Bee just might be waiting for us on the porch with a smile and piece of pie. But I notice Opie grew up and moved away, and even Andy and Helen went to Mount Pilate. Although Mayberry is fun to visit, when you have to make the big choices in life, some of us just need the city lights. Maybe we're afraid of the dark.
