Born in a small town
Jul 11, 2016 8:32:33 GMT -5
Post by Wes on Jul 11, 2016 8:32:33 GMT -5
I tend to write about small towns and the people in them, mostly because that's what I know.
At the paper I own, we have run columns by a guy by the name of Jim Whitehouse for many years. Jim is a long time friend, so I don't think he'll mind my passing along the column he sent in this morning:
Why is it that everyone thinks they live in a small town?
One guy I met told me he lives in a small city in southern California. I visited him there a few months later.
He lived in Glendale. Look it up on a map. It is buried in the Los Angeles megalopolis, and has a population of over 200,000. It is in Los Angles County, the most populous county in the United States, where one “small city” touches the next. 10 Million + people. True, Glendale does have its own “downtown”, not unlike the neighborhoods in Chicago, but---really? A small city?
I grew up in a town of 2,000 people, not counting Burpy Slingerly. Nobody counted Burpy Slingerly.
It was and is a small town, not a suburb of anything else. It contained industry, retail and necessary service providers, as well as parks, a theater, a mill, a school and a slug of churches. Then I moved to a town of 15,000 to attend college—a town in which I now again live, but it shrunk to about 8,000 in the intervening post-industrial years. In between, I lived in towns of 1,200 and 2,500 people, not counting Penelope Purviss and Amos Travernevich, respectively. Nobody counted them.
All of these towns are real towns, not suburbs.
This morning, I decided to find out the definition of a small town, so I climbed the mountain to ask the great and wise oracle on the summit of knowledge, Google. I typed in, “definition of a small town” and found this from the Urban Dictionary, which must be a reliable source because I found it on the Internet, right?:
• Big City: 300,000+ people within city limits
• City: 100,000-300,000 citizens within limits
• Small City: 20,000-100,000 citizens within limits
• Big Town: 7,000-20,000 citizens within limits
• Town: 800-7,000 citizens within limits
• Small Town: 200-800 citizens within limits
• Village: 50-200 citizens within limits
• Hamlet: Community with less than 50 members.
Applying this definition, you can see that I myself am guilty of claiming I live in a small town when if fact, the smallest town I have lived in was 150% the maximum size of a “small town”. And Glendale is in fact a small city. Phooey.
My beloved wife Marsha and I stopped for directions at a hardware store in a little burg in the Upper Peninsula. “I’ll show you on a map,” said the owner. Just step over here to the fresh meat counter so I can spread it out.”
That’s a small town.
Something that used to happen from time to time, back when people had real telephones that lacked caller ID, was that I’d call someone, dial the wrong number but recognize the voice of the person answering.
“Oh, sorry, Charlie, I was calling Claude, but, hey! I need to talk to you about something else anyway…” and 10 minutes later I’d hang up and call Claude. That’s a small town.
Right now, I’m sitting on my front porch writing this, and two young boys just rode by on their rusty old bikes, carrying fishing poles, headed for the river. That’s a small town.
A woman I don’t know is walking by pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller. I wave. She waves. Of course. The baby will learn to wave in due time. That’s a small town.
The definition of a small town needs to be changed to better suit me. “Any place Jim would live.” That works.
At the paper I own, we have run columns by a guy by the name of Jim Whitehouse for many years. Jim is a long time friend, so I don't think he'll mind my passing along the column he sent in this morning:
Why is it that everyone thinks they live in a small town?
One guy I met told me he lives in a small city in southern California. I visited him there a few months later.
He lived in Glendale. Look it up on a map. It is buried in the Los Angeles megalopolis, and has a population of over 200,000. It is in Los Angles County, the most populous county in the United States, where one “small city” touches the next. 10 Million + people. True, Glendale does have its own “downtown”, not unlike the neighborhoods in Chicago, but---really? A small city?
I grew up in a town of 2,000 people, not counting Burpy Slingerly. Nobody counted Burpy Slingerly.
It was and is a small town, not a suburb of anything else. It contained industry, retail and necessary service providers, as well as parks, a theater, a mill, a school and a slug of churches. Then I moved to a town of 15,000 to attend college—a town in which I now again live, but it shrunk to about 8,000 in the intervening post-industrial years. In between, I lived in towns of 1,200 and 2,500 people, not counting Penelope Purviss and Amos Travernevich, respectively. Nobody counted them.
All of these towns are real towns, not suburbs.
This morning, I decided to find out the definition of a small town, so I climbed the mountain to ask the great and wise oracle on the summit of knowledge, Google. I typed in, “definition of a small town” and found this from the Urban Dictionary, which must be a reliable source because I found it on the Internet, right?:
• Big City: 300,000+ people within city limits
• City: 100,000-300,000 citizens within limits
• Small City: 20,000-100,000 citizens within limits
• Big Town: 7,000-20,000 citizens within limits
• Town: 800-7,000 citizens within limits
• Small Town: 200-800 citizens within limits
• Village: 50-200 citizens within limits
• Hamlet: Community with less than 50 members.
Applying this definition, you can see that I myself am guilty of claiming I live in a small town when if fact, the smallest town I have lived in was 150% the maximum size of a “small town”. And Glendale is in fact a small city. Phooey.
My beloved wife Marsha and I stopped for directions at a hardware store in a little burg in the Upper Peninsula. “I’ll show you on a map,” said the owner. Just step over here to the fresh meat counter so I can spread it out.”
That’s a small town.
Something that used to happen from time to time, back when people had real telephones that lacked caller ID, was that I’d call someone, dial the wrong number but recognize the voice of the person answering.
“Oh, sorry, Charlie, I was calling Claude, but, hey! I need to talk to you about something else anyway…” and 10 minutes later I’d hang up and call Claude. That’s a small town.
Right now, I’m sitting on my front porch writing this, and two young boys just rode by on their rusty old bikes, carrying fishing poles, headed for the river. That’s a small town.
A woman I don’t know is walking by pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller. I wave. She waves. Of course. The baby will learn to wave in due time. That’s a small town.
The definition of a small town needs to be changed to better suit me. “Any place Jim would live.” That works.
