An Hour In A Small Town

It is amaz­ing how much can hap­pen and how much you can do in one hour in a small town. For exam­ple, yes­ter­day morn­ing at eleven I decided to take my dog “Killer” for a walk (minia­ture daschund also known as Oscar, Dog, or Dog­ger). Five min­utes later we were at the walk­ing trail near the hos­pi­tal. Ten min­utes into the walk, we heard the nearby freight train sud­denly stop. One minute later, we heard sirens. Obvi­ously, some­thing had hap­pened. We jogged a hun­dred yards to an open­ing in the woods to see what it might be. Sure enough, the train had hit a car. We walked that next hun­dred yards and were there to watch the EMS take the per­son from her car to the hos­pi­tal (one hun­dred yards away — short ride). She seemed to be rel­a­tively okay.

Next, we walked over to the engine (the engi­neer man­aged to stop the train in about one-hundred yards). I talked with the engi­neer while Killer ran around — delighted to have addi­tional peo­ple to meet. The engi­neer was calm and said that it looked like the lady just did not pay atten­tion to what was hap­pen­ing. This is what I love about a small town. In a city, I could not have got­ten within a half mile of the engi­neer — much less talked with him. Killer and I fin­ished our walk and went home. By the time I was back in the office, I could hear the heli­copter land­ing at the hos­pi­tal. It was now eleven-forty-five. It took less than an hour to have a great adven­ture and be back at the office. In a city, you would still be stuck in some park­ing lot some­where (I know, I have lived in sev­eral of them).

Small towns are micro­cosms (minia­ture worlds…if not uni­verses unto them­selves). Many of the faces are famil­iar just about any­where you go. If you are ever in trou­ble, make sure it is in a small town. There will be peo­ple there to help you. You may even find out all about your­self in the local papers. Bet­ter yet, you can be a hero for a kind act here or there — and peo­ple will remem­ber you long after. With enough good actions, you can even become leg­endary. “Anonymity” is not much of a word here. For bet­ter or worse, your neigh­bors keep up with you. It makes you want to be a bet­ter per­son.

I do not think it is an acci­dent that Jesus was born in a small town, or that he grew up in a place that was so small you could almost throw a rock from one city limit sign to the next. I think it was a hint from the Cre­ator: Life is best close to the earth and with peo­ple that hold you account­able. Know­ing you will see that face again means you are respon­si­ble to a com­mu­nity. It is more like a fam­ily. The adven­tures do not have to make national news to be sig­nif­i­cant. Some­day I will bump into the engi­neer again, and the EMS, and the lady that drove in front of the train, and the attend­ing police, and the physi­cian in the emer­gency room, and their fam­i­lies, and their friends…