In Praise of Small Town Life

We had a parade this weekend in my small town to honor a young lady who recently competed in the television show American Idol. She didn’t win, but she finished in the top five, and more importantly, she represented our community extremely well in all respects. So June 8^th was declared Laci Kaye Booth Day in Livingston, Texas, and we held a parade, and a short concert, and people from our town had the chance to take photos and get autographs, and it was a truly special occasion.

The parade itself took all of maybe ten minutes and I couldn’t help thinking that my city friends would probably have laughed at our expense, but there really is a certain charm to small town life. Things definitely move at a slower pace and that’s okay. Believe or not, some people like it that way. So what if our big parade only spanned seven or eight blocks and we only had to block the town’s single major intersection for five minutes. It was exciting!

I’ve spent the majority of my lifetime living in small towns and for the most part, I have enjoyed it immensely. The older I get, the less patience I have for crowds or traffic or the distances between places I need to be. I still make the occasional trip to the city to shop at Christmas or catch a movie or most importantly, to see my kids, but whenever possible, I stay put and let the small town life engulf me.

My latest book (and the sequel coming soon!), is a collection of tales set in the fictional town of Eastlake, Texas. The stories themselves are mostly true and I affectionately refer to them as my unofficial memoirs. I tell stories about the things that happen (or have happened) in the schools and churches of the average small town. And maybe they convey just a bit of what it feels like to live in those special little places. So here’s to Mathis, and Rockdale, and Pollok, and Lake Worth, and Trinity, and Coldspring, and Onalaska, and Leggett, and Livingston, places where I’ve lived and worked and learned about the small town life.

Read At the Drive-In: Small Town Tales (http://bit.ly/atdrivein) and look for Return to Eastlake: More Small Town Tales coming soon!