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April 11, 2008
Small Town America,
home to Tom and Huck, was always home to me, even as I grew up in “the
city.” I couldn’t wait for summer to arrive when my parents would
send me “back home” to Grandma in Tennessee.
Surrounded by
strangers, I was instantly embraced by aunts, uncles and cousins…and
all their friends. Before we arrived on Sunday, the Baptist preacher
knew more than my name. And when I missed church one week with an
upset stomach, he made a personal visit that same afternoon just to
let me know I had been missed.
Life was safe.
Eyes followed me wherever I went, a circle of protection that allowed
us kids freedom to walk and ride bikes across the town, back and
forth, in all directions. Sweet red slicing tomatoes, fireflies,
honeysuckle, goats and calves, watermelon at family picnics…I loved it
all. But most of all I loved the people, the people who loved me
back.
Thirty years later,
nothing had changed when my husband and I were able to spend four
months in Tennessee, introducing our two children to Small Town
America. Standing at the high school counter, enrolling them in the
fall semester, the principal walked out to meet us for the first
time…calling us by name and asking us how we were adjusting to life
away from Phoenix, the big city. He already knew we were renting a
mobile home from Ruby and spending time with my Uncle Jimmie. He
invited us by anytime, directing us to his farm just past the turnoff
to our own home. Any niece of Mr. James was family, not just to him,
but to the grocery clerk, the post mistress and the hair dresser.
In Small Town
America, you are known for who you are. Pure and simple. Handshake
deals still exist for people who have seen character proven over the
years.
If you want to get
back to basics, there is no better place than in a small town. Down
to earth graces are the foundation of reputations. Parking a Jag at
the grocery store will certainly draw attention, but it won’t
compensate for rudeness, for arrogance or for meanness.
The “law of the
farm” is still the rule of small towns. Even when lottery tickets
hang on the fridge promising future riches, small town people still
treasure friends and family. Hard work matters. Keeping your word,
sitting at the bedside of the ill, a warm casserole, an invitation to
church…these are the riches of small town life that can’t be purchased
or won.
Pretense is
impossible. Hypocrisy is hard to disguise in a small town. Your
church life, your work life, your family life are woven into an
indivisible whole, a summation of your values and character that
precede you into a room and are left behind when you depart.
It all comes
together in a small town where people save family fortunes to send
their precious first-borns off to college and a “better life” in the
big cities. Moms and dads will brag about the accomplishments of
their distant children, and friends will share their pride. But the
child is finally measured not by the degree earned at Harvard, but by
the humility of knowing her roots, of her ability to remain grounded
in the truths learned back home where a diploma is just a piece of
paper.
Obama has revealed
a serious lack of judgment. Truly, provincial isolation is no less
possible in ivory towers, in the power complex of Congress, or in the
hallowed Harvard halls where Obama has spent his adult life.
Surrounding oneself with sameness, a big town dinner table crowd can
convince an up-and-coming Senator that partial-birth-abortion is a
sophisticated humane response to pregnancy. As such, he certainly
will be joined in his derision of pro-life people as hicks who “don’t
get it” because of their boorish religious fanaticism.
One suspects that
Obama is not unaware of how to sing the politically correct praise of
small town people. It is easy to picture him standing presidentially
in front of the grain co-op shaking hands with the locals, telling
them they are the “people who make America what it is.”
But Obama has now
been caught in the games that are no longer possible in Big Town
America, hiding with our double lives in mass anonymity. Saying one
thing to friends, but on the other side of the tracks, singing a
different tune, he has revealed his contempt for the very things that
make Small Town America great.
From the one side
of his mouth, Obama is certainly quite capable of throwing a
compliment to the small town crowd. But what comes out of the other
side of his mouth should concern us all.
The character of a
man is revealed when both sides speak a single truth. More than that,
the highest and best character, when it is revealed, is grounded in
the values that make Small Town America great.
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December 26, 2005
Small Acts of Courage
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