Small Town Life

“Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And thats probly where they’ll bury me”

– John (Cougar) Mellencamp

I wasn’t exactly born in a small town (actually, I was born in a city that we didn’t live in), but I grew up in one. When giving directions, my dad used to say “take Route 214 east; when you drive into the Chesapeake Bay you passed us about 1 mile back.” In reality, it was more like 6 miles — but who’s counting?

Upon joining the workforce, I ended up living in “the big city.” Ok, it wasn’t exactly the city, but it was to a small town girl like myself. Municipal water and sewer were things I had heard about but never experienced for myself. And I found that I don’t like “city water” so much.

But after three and a half years of marriage, John and I moved out here. Beautiful rolling hills. Gorgeous sunsets. The smell of cow poop in the air. I like to tell people that it smells better than a Walmart across the street. I buy my meat at the local butcher’s shop. My seafood comes from a family-owned fish market. The italian grocer has excellent homemade cannolis and meatballs (not that you would want to eat them together or anything…). I stopped by the farmers market on the way home from work this evening. Picked up some corn and half of a chocolate buttercreme cake.

I love knowing what farm my meat came from; knowing that my salmon wasn’t farm raised and fed Chinese food. The family who owns the italian grocery rolls all of the meatballs by hand every morning and imports authentic bread from the Bronx — it’s delivered fresh every day!

But there’s a Walmart down the street. And a Safeway in the same center. That’s where I end up buying everything else. There are a Food Lion, SuperFresh and Weis in town to, but they’re all either more expensive, have sub-quality produce or don’t have what I’m looking for. I throw all of the business that I can towards the Mom & Pop shops. I hope they stick around for a while.

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