Dispelling most small own myths
Marlayna Soenneker
I come from a small town. Most people immediately think of things like gigantic belt buckles, country music and large pickup trucks when they think of small towns. After my brother's freshman year at college, his fraternity buddies wrote in his personal summary for their annual, "After hearing about the wonders of MIT, Richard sadly left his goat-herding duties in Oregon behind and traveled to big town Boston." We small town folks get a bad rap.
But, despite the rumors, there really are some people out there, like me, who come from small towns and yet don't own a belt buckle or a large truck and who even hate country music. (Note: my family does not now nor have we ever owned goats, sheep or any other herdable creatures.)
My small town is called St. Helens, Ore., and it's about thirty miles north of Portland. We have two grocery stores, three video stores and one movie theatre with one screen. This movie theatre is probably the last place on earth where you can get still three tickets to a show, a huge bucket of popcorn and two sodas for $15.
My town has about 10,000 people, so I figure that if you add up the Notre Dame student population, the faculty, the administration, the grounds keepers and the food service people, this place is probably about as big as my home town. And you see some of the same things I like about my hometown here on campus. For example, going to Mass at the Basilica is always interesting for me because I am just as likely to see a student I work with as a professor I have in the pew next to me. But there are a few uniquely small town things that I really miss.
My town is small enough that I actually live next door to my high school English teacher and across the street from my best friend. My window looks into my English teacher's garage. I used to drive by her house late at night on my way home when we had turned in a big project or paper that day in school, and if the lights were on, I would think to myself "Good! You stay up as late grading it as I stayed up doing it!"
Another thing about small towns is the fact that you sometimes have the same teacher for several years in a row. We only had one band teacher in the whole town, so I started with him in fifth grade and ended with him as a senior. You can really get close to a teacher in eight years. My parents are divorced, and my mom used to live on his way home, so every week or two, he would drop me off at her house after school and pick me up the next morning.
That's an example of the kind of caring that only results from years of knowing someone.
Probably the nicest thing about small towns is the trust. I went to ACE Hardware to get a key copied for my car last year. The lady made the key, handed me the copy and the original, and told me to go try the key on the door to see if it worked, and then come back in and pay. I could easily have taken off with my new key, but, of course, I didn't.
So, you say, that's just a key. Small loss if I hadn't brought it back. My best small town story is from my father. The mouse for our computer was not working, so he took it in to the computer store in town (we only have one of those) and asked the guy what to do. The man said he needed a new mouse, and set about finding him one.
When he found it, my dad asked what he owed the guy. The guy told my dad to take it home and see if it worked with our computer, and if it did, to come back and pay. Now tell me that is not small town trust and honesty! (My father did, of course, go back and pay.)
True, there are downsides to small town life. The guys in my town have invented a sport that may be new to everyone else on earth called "mudding." In this sport, you take your car or, preferably, truck and go to a big muddy hill, where you proceed to four-wheel in the mud until it gets dark or you get stuck. Usually the latter. And I must admit that I did once meet a guy with a belt buckle larger than my hand. But despite the boredom and backwardness that can sometimes come with small towns, the peace, friendliness and trust are soothing to the soul.
Marlayna is a freshman Psychology major. Her column appears every other Thursday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, March 23, 2000
