The PERKS of living in a small town …

As most of you “regulars” know I live in a very small town in North Carolina. Our Seaboard Street has a post office, a library, a combination hardware and “5 & Dime store plus a few unoccupied buildings. They are all on one side of the street. The other side looks over the single train track that cuts through our town.

Back in 2009 I shared an incident with you that I figured could only happen in a small, country town like mine. I was at the Hardware store when an old CSX freight train chugged into sight. It was going very slow and then it actually came to a stop. I saw the conductor jump down from the train and I asked the man at the store if he knew what was wrong. “Oh, nothin’s wrong…”, he said, “it’s lunch time and he jogs over to the “Subway” at the BP station to get his food … been going on for years” !

Well now I have another story that speaks of the joys of small town living. I stopped at our library (pictured at the far right, with the canopy) recently and was very disappointed to see that the “Closed” sign was up and Deb, the librarian, was locking the door. She said “Hi” and told me she was taking a walk as part of her lunch hour. Laughingly I said, “Darn, I have a car appointment and was hoping to get a book to read. Their magazines are all about sports or mechanics”.

“Oh, I know that feeling.” she said as she turned back and unlocked the door. “Run in and grab a book. Just drop by after your car stuff and we’ll make it legal.” … and that’s what I did !

A few hours later I was back in the library “making it legal” with my library card. I was also thanking Deb profusely and she was blushing and saying it was no big deal. “What was no big deal ?” the lady behind me in line asked and when I explained what she’d done the lady just smiled and shook her head up and down. “Yep”, she said, “That’s our Debbie !”