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Just Sayin’

Small town living means that when you get your tractor stuck in the manure pile during a snowstorm, your neighbor comes to pull you out with his back hoe.

 

It also means you would have a neighbor that actually owns a backhoe.

 

Oh, and he’s pushing 80.

 

And then again it means how robust and vital 80 can be, and appear, by living that kind of outdoor, hard working life, built upon a foundation of honesty and integrity. Thanks, Tony.

 

Small town living also means another neighbor came to his entire area’s rescue by scraping their street and driveways with his tractor— thank you, Julio.

 

In the 22 years that I have lived here I think I’ve seen our quiet country lane snow-plowed by the state DOT twice. Of course, it’s only fair to add that in 22 years, I’ve witnessed maybe 4 snowfalls that would require it. The main arteries and local state highways are generally pretty quickly seen to, but the rest of us tend to be left to our own devices. And when your device is stuck in an icy, snow clad manure pile, you’re SOL.

 

Soooo Outta Luck.

 

Yet here is one person delivering extra bales of hay to someone else’s snowbound farm to make sure their livestock gets fed and there’s another checking on an elderly neighbor to make sure she’s got heat along with plenty of groceries. There’s the priest, living next door to his church, offering to keep the doors open should anyone else on the street feel like trudging in Sunday morning. And there’s the staff at the local hospital that stay all night at the end of their earlier shifts, sleeping on gurneys and on the floor, to make sure the next surge of patients being brought in receive needed care.

 

I really get it now when I read older interviews with the late Andy Griffith that, when pressed to tell exactly where Mayberry could be found on a map and if indeed it was Mt Airy, NC, Griffith indicated that Mayberry was more of a state of mind and was based on characters and places he had known in his youth. Goodness prevailed, no matter how much craziness or difficulty was thrown at it.

 

It’s sort of nice to realize that we all might – and do – live in Mayberry.