Hometown Kingdom

Com­mu­ni­ties work like king­doms. Small towns have all of the char­ac­ters that would fit within the walls of a cas­tle. We humans tend to group in a funny com­bi­na­tion of roles. Churches and social clubs are smaller ver­sions of the same. There is a place for every­one and a defined exis­tence for the tak­ing. Once you estab­lish your iden­tity, it is almost impos­si­ble to change it. A rad­i­cal shift may mean mov­ing to rede­fine yourself.

Look around. There is a king and a queen in every kingdom/community. They are often not an elected polit­i­cal entity, but their pref­er­ences over­rule any­thing done by local politi­cians. Peo­ple seem to go out of their way to keep them happy. There are priests — defend­ers of the reli­gious sta­tus quo. You will also find knights — young ones on the foot­ball field and older ones run­ning busi­nesses. There is the town gos­sip of course and the vil­lage idiot. To make it inter­est­ing there is a town witch or two and a “Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde” fel­low around. The pro­fes­sions are present: med­i­cine and law.

There is an artist or two and a court jester. No town is com­plete with­out a clown. Gravedig­gers, chim­ney sweeps, shop­keep­ers, war­riors, musi­cians, social work­ers, innkeep­ers, the rich and the poor — all within the city lim­its ful­fill­ing their respec­tive roles and bring­ing bal­ance to the land. Farm­ers with their pro­duce in the town square; har­lots, sol­diers, actors, phar­ma­cists, teach­ers, chil­dren, the aged, politi­cians, cooks, bankers, maids, day traders, car­pen­ters, retail­ers, real estate agents, insur­ance peo­ple — all with a stone’s throw of the town clock that chimes the hour.

A lit­tle world is still a world. Famil­iar faces are con­sol­ing. We all know who we are. Some of us ful­fill a com­bi­na­tion of roles. I rather enjoy the exten­sion of the class clown I once was to the court jester and priest/writer I have become. Throw in col­lege teacher and coun­selor for the trim­mings, and add a touch of wan­derer and you pretty much have me. It is a funny/creative com­bi­na­tion that I would not trade for any­thing else. I love it here. Every­thing we need is right here. We are com­fort­able and secure. Every­one has every­one else’s number.

Enjoy here for as long as here is here. Some of the great­est peo­ple on earth lived and died in a small town. You may be one of them and not even know it.