Who Would Want to Live in a Small Town?

 

I am aware of the drawbacks in small towns. Behavioral researchers will tell you that, across a small population, very few people are going to “make it big” and not many highly accomplished people will emerge as “aspirational examples” for others to follow. It's just math.

This reality can temper the dreams and ambitions of children growing up in small towns because, after all, aiming high and achieving greatly is less likely for those who have no examples to follow. Striving toward what you have seen around you is kind of the norm and aiming low can become a self-perpetrating cycle. 

Also, small towns can feel stifling. Rampant familiarity and a sense that everyone knows each other's business can really make one feel boxed in with no room to experiment or grow. Who would want to live like that? 

Then of course, there is this sort of thing: 

I recently traveled across the country and visited the small town where I grew up. Imaginary readers should note that it has been more than 30 years since I lived within a thousand miles of my boyhood home. One day during my brief visit, I ventured out to buy groceries in the middle of a snowstorm. Upon arriving at the store, I realized that I was not carrying my wallet and had no means of paying my bill. I didn’t want to drive back and forth unnecessarily through the snow and, as I pondered my dilemma, I spied a classmate from several decades ago. I approached her for help and, in true small-town fashion, she was handing me money before I could even finish explaining my predicament. I assured her that my brother would stop by to repay her in the days to come, but she waved off that suggestion as some sort of insult. 

Stuff like that happens a lot in small towns. It's a way of life that you can't get anywhere else. I think it's probably okay to forego worldly ambition in the name of simplicity and contentment, but I fear that all too often, the sparkle of the big city blinds many people from the humble glow of the small town. 

24 Years

At some point during my early years of fatherhood, I considered the 6-year gap between the birth of my oldest and the birth of my youngest child. I calculated that I would have 24 years of parenthood before they were all adults which seemed like a luxurious eternity, practically endless in its expanse. Definitely enough time to perfect the art of raising children.

I wrote about this before, at the ten year mark with my "A Decade of Parenthood" post. At that point, I admitted to not knowing much about parenting, but I still thought I would learn it all eventually. It also seemed to me that I had all the time in the world to do so. Wrong and wrong.

By the time any of my imaginary readers see this post, my youngest will be 18 years old; my 24 years will have completely elapsed. Along the way, I came to realize that there is no right way to parent; it's clearly an ongoing exercise of "make-it-up as you go". But I surely underestimated how quickly it would pass. The whole ordeal is like a runaway train that picks up speed every year... you can't slow it down and you can't catch up to climb back on. It just barrels down the track toward an uncertain future that arrives too soon. 

I guess you're never really finished parenting, at least not until your offspring begin providing more care to you than you do to them. In that regard, I'll keep my job for much more than 24 years. But it is already clear to me that parenting children and parenting adults are two different experiences that bring different flavors of satisfaction. For sure both are great, and both are fulfilling, but they are not the same. 

Christmas Be Gone? Not so fast...

Photo Credit: Terri Hartley

At some point in the last couple of decades, some of you imaginary readers may have heard me muttering about how I hate Christmas. Nothing agains Christ or Christians, I just don't enjoy the extreme commercialization and ever-expanding, stress-inducing rituals that so many people get mindlessly sucked into "enjoying". 

You may have even heard my proclamation that, should I become ruler of the world, I would cancel all holidays. If that makes me seem like a curmudgeon then...well... get off my lawn!

This year, I learned about an exciting new product: "Christmas be gone" in a spray can. I immediately scoured the internet for purchase options while dreaming about the satisfaction of dousing carolers and ugly sweater wearers. Turns out the product doesn't really exist... and maybe that's okay.

The Fortiers took a subdued approach to XMAS this year attending one small party during the week before, a family movie on Christmas eve, sensible gift giving and the exchange of thoughtful, hand-made cards, and a close family of three joining us for Christmas dinner. It was really nice. I didn't hate any of it.

Now don't get me wrong, we 're not talking a grinch-like transformation or anything like that... and I still probably hate the other holidays, but Christmas 2023 was a really good one capping off a challenging year. 

I'll try to keep this momentum leading up to New Year's Eve... might even stay up until midnight!

No Stopping Me Now

Well, this is bad news for my enemies… 

See that photo? That little, red, twisty thing is what Italian scientists call a “corno”; it means “horn” in English. This one came from Naples and, according to well-substantiated scientific fact, it will likely change my life. 

The "science", which is sometimes called "conjecture" by the haters, has been passed along from Italian grandma to Italian grandma for generations, and has proven the following fact: the corno attracts good fortune and repels curses if it is (1) made by hand, (2) painted red, and (3) given as a gift. 

Check, check, check; mine meets all 3 criteria. 

So now that I have received this gift, how do I expect my life to change? 

Well, of course, unlikely events of good fortune will find me on a regular basis. You can follow me on social media to keep track of my forthcoming holes in one, straight flushes, and appearances on Jumbotrons at major sporting events. This is likely to be so common that I may need to register the handle @JumbotronGuy to launch my career as an influencer. 

But more importantly, if any of you imaginary readers have ever put a curse on me, it will no longer be effective. The curse-cancelling powers of the corno are a well-established fact that drives the entire superstition industry in Naples. 

No stopping me now... your move enemies!

The Mystery Hour

One moment you are naked on a table in a strange room; unfamiliar faces surround you. A moment later you are at home, all dressed. You don't know how you got there.

There is a large gap in your memory. A full hour has elapsed and you have no recall of the last 60 minutes. It's a mystery!

You check social media for scandalizing posts or photos... no clues... mild relief. 

You are too drowsy to investigate further. You shuffle to bed for a 3-hour nap.

You wake up hungrier than you've ever been (except for that time in China when you missed your flight twice and had no currency). As you ravage the pantry, it all comes back to you. 

You spent yesterday in the bathroom, didn't eat for 24 hours, and had a colonoscopy today.

You wonder if you hitch-hiked home with no pants...

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is an approach that focuses on creating situations that value and include people from diverse backgrounds, treating those people fairly, and providing them with equal opportunities. DEI initiatives are everywhere, but I have a couple problems with this all-encompassing movement, one of which is merely semantic, the other is more substantial. 

Now, I admit,  I may get hung up on semantics a little more often than I should. This has been a life-long trait that annoyed my siblings when we were kids. They even gave me a pejorative childhood nickname related to my precise interpretations of their casual expressions. 

In terms of semantics, it bothers me that there can be so much overlap in the meaning of these three words. In fact, if we cancelled efforts on Diversity and Equity, but did a good job on Inclusion, I think almost everything these programs aim to achieve would work out fine. 

Think about it, if work places, and communities, and organizations were focused on inclusion for all their members, then Equity would happen naturally. No one would be excluded from equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal treatment; they would be “included” on all fronts. This principle of inclusion would of course be extended to diverse members of the group which would minimize the need to specifically focus on diversity. Maybe the whole initiative could just be call "Inclusion".

On the other hand, focusing only on inclusion does seem to stop short of actively pursuing a diverse membership in certain instances when diversity should be sought. I admit that would be a weakness of an "inclusion-only" approach, but that brings me to the more concrete issue I have with DEI. Specifically, diversity is not always good. 

There. I said it. Probably getting cancelled as you read this...

Don't get me wrong. I know that diverse groups can be more creative in developing solutions to complex problems, and can also be more sensitive to how well policies will generalize across a diverse population. In these instances, diversity is clearly good. I agree.

But research also shows that groups focused on executing plans, once the creative solutions have been developed, are often more productive and efficient when they are a tightly knit, homogenous team. In those instances, forcing a diverse membership to function as a single unit can be counter-productive.

Overall, I think DEI initiatives should not be automatic nor universal, but rather, they should be selectively adopted where clearly needed and beneficial. I am not suggesting a major cutback, but a little more thought about how and where to emphasize DEI would be a step in the right direction.

And maybe we need a new acronym, derived from words whose meanings don’t overlap.

Coopers, Cobblers, and Grocery Baggers

Grocery bagger showing why he is bad at Tetris

Below is a list of ten historical occupations, nine of which required years of training to acquire the necessary skills to succeed. Consequently, those who plied these artful trades took genuine pride in their work and stood behind the quality of their output. 

The tenth, grocery bagging, took almost no training and no more than a trace of conscientiousness to find success. Heck, I mastered it at age 16 after five minutes of instruction from a man who accidentally locked himself in the bread room later that same day. Despite the easy path to skill acquisition, I believe that my co-workers and I all took a reasonable degree of pride in our work. 

Somehow, all of the trades that required tremendous expertise have became obsolete* in the face of more efficient technologies, while grocery bagging has persisted. Even more surprising is the fact that grocery bagging has endured while grocery bagging skills (a generous term) have declined precipitously. My first-hand experience suggests that the field is now mired in a sea of feckless practitioners. No need to cite examples; I am sure my imaginary readers have observed this first-world problem on their own.

That's a logical contradiction, right? Shouldn't the skilled trades persist and the simple ones be replaced. Anyway, here's the comparative list:

1. Cooper - A cooper was a skilled artisan who made barrels and casks. 

2. Cobbler - A cobbler was a skilled tradesperson who repaired and made shoes and boots. 

3. Blacksmith - A blacksmith was a metalworker who forged and shaped iron and steel. 

4. Farrier - A farrier was a specialist in equine hoof care and shoeing. 

5. Milliner - A milliner was a skilled artisan who made hats. 

6. Wheelwright - A wheelwright was a skilled artisan who made and repaired wheels. 

7. Silversmith - A silversmith was a metalworker who specialized in creating silver objects. 

8. Bookbinder - A bookbinder was a specialist craftsman who bound and repaired books. 

9. Calligrapher - A calligrapher was an artist who specialized in creating decorative writing by hand. 

10. Grocery Bagger – A grocery bagger was a teenager who needed cash to keep his car running, had a modicum of spatial reasoning skills, and who understood that a gallon of milk could crush grapes. 

There are many ways to measure a country’s success. Some suggest that life expectancy is the best measure, others look at percentage of the population that lives above the poverty line, and a third group believes an index of self-reported happiness is the ultimate measure. The USA tends to fare ok on these measures relative to other industrialized countries; we’re not the best nor the worst. 

But if they ever start ranking based on grocery bagging, I fear we may be last.

___________________

*Not sure about farriers 

MMDCCLXXVI

Today's theme is: Ancient History

Now, if you didn't win the 4th grade "Roman Numeral" contest in Mrs. Riley's class, you may be struggling to figure out the big number that titles this post (of course I am only surmising here, I wouldn't really know about people like you). Anyway, the number is 2776 and it is relevant today.

Indeed, they say that on April 21, 753 BC, an enterprising fellow named "Romulus" decided that being raised by a wolf was a cool background story but it wasn't how he wanted to be remembered, so he founded a city, named it "Rome", and went about his merry way. Now, 2776 years later, the city still stands, and its residents celebrate the date of its founding. 

And speaking of ancient history, the photo of the Fortier clan above, which seems to me like I took a couple of months ago, is actually about nine years old (that's IX years for the rest of you in Mrs. Riley's class). I snapped this along the banks of the Tevere river, right in the heart of Rome, back when the city was only MMDCCLXVII years old.

Small Town Shame

Why do I get mad when the people in my neighborhood don’t stop at the stop signs on the nearly empty streets of our peaceful community? They are not driving dangerously and it really should not matter to me at all. But it does... and I think it is because I grew up in a small town.

You don't see the connection? Let me explain my theory.

We humans are a social species that evolved to thrive through collaboration. This means we are pre-programmed to establish rules that benefit the community, to hold one another accountable to those rules, and to feel shame when caught breaking them. The evolved capacity to "feel shame" is the essential glue that facilitates coordinated action and collective success for a social species. That's part one.

Small towns are the closest thing we have to the rudimentary tribes where almost all of human evolution occurred. Small groups breed familiarity between the members, which is a key ingredient for feeling ashamed when caught acting selfishly. Humans are far less likely to care about how they are judged by strangers compared to how they are judged by people they know. That's part two.

So we all evolved to hold our tribe members (neighbors) accountable to a set of socially agreed rules, but unless you spent your formative years in a tribal (or small town) setting, with reasonable familiarity across the group membership, you may be a city-slicker who never internalized this core value. Remember, identical genomes express themselves differently when nurtured in different environments, so having DNA that predisposes shame for selfish behavior does not mean you will definitely develop that personality trait. Many of my neighbors surely did not.

I grew up in a rural county with a population of about 20 thousand residents scattered across a dozen or so small towns. In that environment, adhesion to agreed behaviors became a deeply ingrained value for me. To this day, I feel a responsibility to obey the rules of my small community (neighborhood), and I often feel offended by those who break them. I see the rule breakers as selfish and, according to my evolved nature, I bear a responsibility to signal my opposition to their uncooperative behavior.  My anger is actually my DNA reacting to behavior that I perceive as "against my community".

The problem is that humans evolved very slowly, over millions of years, to thrive in small groups. However, in a much shorter time frame, thousands of years, we transitioned to living in large cities. Evolution hasn't caught up. 

Small town values don't jive with big cities and dense populations... that makes me mad.  

A Bull and a Pig

So, news from my local newspaper back in Maine can sometimes be a little more "down home" than the news you imaginary readers probably see in your parts. Case in point, this recent story about a bull that gored a jogger on a running trail not far from where I grew up.

Now don't get me wrong; I am sorry that the jogger was mildly injured and I am sure the entire experience was frightening for her, but I am much more interested in the details about the bull. Apparently, he and his best friend, a pig, had recently escaped from a nearby farm and were living like a couple of frat brothers in the proximate woods. A curious image indeed!

I'll bet it was the pig's idea. He was probably tired of the sty-life, rolling in filth and eating slop, so he hatched a plan to go off into the world and be free. He may have realized, when he couldn't reach the gate latch, that he would need help along the way. 

I imagine he might have asked the sheep for help and learned that they were all rule followers who didn't want to cross the farmer. He probably gave no serious consideration to the chickens because they have short attention spans and were unlikely strong enough to unlatch the gate. The horse would have been strong enough to help, but probably too comfortable as a quasi-pet to consider a radical break from his cushy farm life. The goat? Nah, kind of a jerk and his kids are all hyper. I'll bet the pig settled on the bull as the logical choice after no more than a minute of contemplation.

I wonder what he used for a sales pitch: "Hey Bull, I heard the cows mocking you the other day.  The farmer too... he uses the term "bullshit" for everything he dislikes. If I were you, I'd think about breaking out of this place. I wouldn't go alone though, you'll need someone clever to help you survive on the outside."

Next thing you know, the bull and the pig are sneaking out the back gate, way over-confident and self-congratulatory to realize that, within a couple cold and hungry days, they'd be mugging joggers to steal their protein bars. Turns out that domestic, inter-species, farm couples don't thrive naturally in the Maine woods. Who knew...?

Back on the farm, the bull and the pig may have been folk heroes in absentia for a short time, but I wonder what the other animals are saying about them after their local news exposure and shameful return? Maybe they'll get a book or a movie deal out of it...