Ostomy Memories of a Small Town

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HenryM

In 2004, we emigrated to a small rural town of 350 people in Utah. It was on a par with migrating to a foreign country except that the natives spoke the same language as us. Everything about us was different, as it turned out. We may have been the only registered Democrats in town, if not the entire county. We were not of the predominant Utahn Mormon faith, and therefore did not attend, along with everyone else, the church that dominated the little town. Perhaps most significantly, we were distinguished from all of our neighbors by the fact that we were from Florida; they were all from THERE. One might just as well have designated us as being from some alien nation on the other side of the globe. [My wife had never seen snow before. We moved there in October. The elevation at our home was 5,840 ft. It was snowing before that month ended. We were so enthralled by it, we’d go walking in it. The locals, staring out their windows at us, likely were saying, “There goes that crazy Florida couple.”] Both of us had always lived in the city; this was small town America in spades. There was no home mail delivery, for instance. Every day, I walked to the post office to get my mail from our box. Commercial activity in the town was practically nil. There were no stores. Unlike the two of us, who had always been reliant upon others to repair things when they malfunctioned, these people were all quite self-reliant. I was the only male in town without his own workshop stocked with tools and the knowledge of how to employ them. Yet we managed to worm our way into their good graces and we benefited from and participated in their neighborly, hard-working perspective on life. We may have returned in 2018 to Florida, but that little town has a special nook in my memory.

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ron in mich

Hi Henry, good story. I grew up in a small town, but the big metropolis was only a couple miles up the road, about 3 thousand people. We didn't have mail delivery either, but we had milk delivered in a glass bottle and us kids would fight to get the first glass of milk as it had the cream that was on the top of the bottle. Our post office was half a mile up the road in a small mom and pop grocery store.

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Bill

Hello HenryM.

Thanks for another interesting story, which managed to stimulate my memory bank.

I recall in the early 70's taking on a job in Ipswich, which is in the far East of England. About half way to Ipswich, when travelling in the car, there was a marked difference in the speeds the vehicles travelled. The speed was halved and that seemed to epitomise the mentality set of the indigenous population past that point in  the East.

After about six months in the job, I asked one of my colleages "How long did they think it would take before outsiders like us might be accepted as part of the community?"  His reply was "OOO - ARRH!- I would reckon about four generations!"

We thought that his estimate was probably accurate, so began to make arrangements to move back to a more 'civilised' part of the country.

Best wishes

Bill 

TerryLT

Hi Henry, I always considered myself very fortunate to have been brought up with both worlds, the big city life and the small rural community (the island). Savary Island is still off the grid to this day. Do it yourself is not a choice, it's a necessity. My dad was a very handy guy and I picked up a few things even as a child. Things were pretty primitive in the beginning, a hand pump, hauling water to the cabin in buckets, an outhouse and a wood stove. As time went by things modernized, a gas powered water pump, indoor plumbing via a gravity fed system, elevated water tank, a propane stove and fridge. Lights were also either gas, kerosene or propane. As an adult, when technology improved and I decided to modernize again, I had to learn about running solar systems, solar panels, inverters, battery banks and back-up generators. There were many jack-of-all-trades types on the island who were willing to help when something went wrong, and something always went wrong! But there was a certain pride in figuring it out for yourself.

I figure I may be a little better prepared than the average city dweller when the apocalypse comes. Or maybe not.

Cheers,

Terry

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