I seem always destined to begin each blog post with, “I can’t believe I haven’t posted in such a long time.” This is supremely humorous, because not a day goes by that I don’t have an experience or encounter where I think, “I feel a blog post coming on.” Suffice it to say, there are a gazillion snippets of “mental compost” churning around in my scattered and filled-to-overflowing brain, just begging to get out, and it looks like one of them will get its wish this morning.
Council is an extremely small town. Geographically, the physical location that is the town of Council is small to be sure, but over and above that is the size of the community of people. While there are a fair number of “new comers” (arrived in the last 20 years), there is still a large representation of folks whose families have been here for multiple generations, and they themselves either were born and raised here, or moved here at a very young age and grew up here. Some of the “younger” generation (now classified by me as anything under 50 years of age LOL) have frequently moved away at some point and returned to the town where they grew up. But still a large number in that same age group live here and have never left.
As someone who moved around a great deal as a child, attending eight different schools in three different states my first six years of school, I find the foundation and historical perspective of growing up and living in the same place all one’s life fascinating. For these individuals, there exists an amazing network of family…by birth, by marriage, by experience…both immediate and extended, upon which a “native” can depend for any given purpose at any given time. A great example of this is a young man who works for us who seemingly pops up with an unending array of tools and yard equipment. When I ask where that came from, the answer is almost always, “Grampa.” This even led me to recently inquire to this individual if “grampa” might possibly have a 6 volt battery charger (the battery on our 1961 Ford tractor was dead), but alas I was informed, “That’s one thing Grampa doesn’t have.”
Another area where “family” support is integral to daily life is child care. As the owner of the only daycare in town, I often observe the extent to which the extended family – both real and experiential – plays such a crucial role. Children are often dropped off by grandparents, picked up by neighbors, kept on Wednesdays by aunts that used to be married to grandpa, and just plain ole’ life-long friends. It is not even uncommon for ex-wives and girlfriends to babysit the children of the current girlfriend and their “ex.”
While I have only scratched the surface of the positives of growing up and living in the same small town all one’s life, I have recently encountered a less attractive side of that same coin.
There is no doubt that, as we journey through life, we establish a history and accumulate baggage. With very few exceptions, the coming of age process is often fraught with poor choices and less-than-stellar decisions along the way. Unfortunately, when one lives in the same town as an adult where one has grown up and gone through that coming of age process, everyone – and I do mean EVERYONE – knows every little detail about your history and baggage. Add to that the propensity of human beings to simply fill In knowledge gaps with pure fiction, and by the time you’ve called “small town America” (wherever it is located) home for thirty, forty, or fifty years or more, it is hard for a relative newcomer to separate fact from fiction.
This whole scenario gets even more complicated when one considers one’s “people.” For those who have called a small town home for more than two or three generations, there is a tendency to identify with – or be identified by – one’s “people”…that clan from which one hails…that physical and historical extended family to which one “belongs.” For those of us who are “just off the boat” as it were (in our case a 1990 Ford F250, but you get the point), it is helpful to take the time to try and learn the complex intertwinings of the family dynasties and how everyone is connected. Meanwhile, it is also extremely important to keep one’s mouth shut about anyone and everyone, because you have no idea when you might be speaking to his or her aunt, brother’s mother-in-law, or second cousin twice removed. But I digress…
While family affiliation gives one a foundation, it can also serve as a ball and chain around one’s ankle that is nearly impossible for someone to shake, especially if a particular family clan (or even just a fair representation of that clan) has a less-than-desirable reputation over the years.
For me as a newcomer, this has arisen repeatedly when it comes to hiring employees for our multiple businesses in town.
While I always do due diligence to get to know a prospective employee to the best of my ability, I’d be a fool if I didn’t at least check around to get the pulse of that person’s general reputation. Every once in a while, I’ll hear something along the lines of, “When they were young, they did…,” or “…they were…,” but by the time I encounter them, they have “come of age” quite nicely, with a stable family and a positive and productive recent history. For some, however, particularly the older generation, it is difficult to allow someone to grow out of one’s historical baggage on one hand and one’s family affiliation on the other. It is the latter situation I find most fascinating.
Just days away from our first anniversary as Council residents, I can honestly say that the most damning feedback I have heard regarding any one individual about which I have inquired is family affiliation of some sort or another. Sometimes, an inquiry isn’t even necessary. Some folks have felt compelled to “share” about this employee or that, “for my own good” – a sentiment for which I am always grateful, even if I find the content more than a little over the top.
I have been encouraged not to hire, or – more frequently – been warned that I will live to regret the hiring of someone already in my employ with such pronouncements as, “That whole family is nothing but a bunch of drunks,” or “The <fill in the family name> are just a bunch of crooks and thieves that’ll steal you blind.” Such conversations give me pause and temper my minimal regret at moving around so much as a child and growing up without that community foundation of positive support. Suffice it to say that my very own personal early adult years are peppered with a fair number of extremely poor choices and less-than-stellar decisions, and I’m grateful that the members of the community I now call home at age 53 are not “in the know” of my every little (and big) coming of age “misstep.”
Meanwhile, I am starting to get a feel for how this works, and I have learned to ask around for input, but not to take any one individual’s feedback as gospel. While local “lore” is taken under advisement, each employment decision is brought before the Lord with a petition for wisdom, and then I go with my gut and make the call based on the single individual I find before me at this very moment in time. My gut…intuition…that “Still Small Voice” has proven to be fairly solid where people are concerned. Over the many lessons of life learned in my own personal coming of age journey, I have learned that it is true that “trash often begets trash” as it were. However, it is not uncommon for good people to come out of “trash,” not to mention the same potential for “trash” to come out of good people.
During a conversation in the midst of our courting relationship, my then prospective husband commented that his overarching desire was to “just be normal.” This prompted a heart-felt chuckle on my part and the response that as a 38-year-old never-married blind woman was about to marry a 38-year-old single father of five children, I thought that “normal” ship done sailed a long time ago. “Normal” has never been my mantra, or even my desire, and I hope it will never be. As such, I hope I will never view the people that I encounter in life with the “normal” lens of historical and familial “baggage” (even though this is not always easy, and I don’t always get it right). As such, I fully recognize that it will not always work out for me personally, but that’s okay. At least I will always know that – at some point down the road – that individual who may choose to take advantage of, or cheat me out of something, will someday look back and remember that person who gave them an opportunity to overcome their baggage and accomplish something positive…even if they decided to throw that opportunity away.