Martha -- they's a-comin' here with city slicker ways!

I just read the latest census statistics – and statistics ‘never’ lie – that my town is one of the fastest growing, population-wise, in the country. I don’t know if I like that.

When I moved here many years ago this was a very small town. It was, to me, like Sinclair Lewis’s town of ‘Gopher Prairie’ in the novel Main Street – minus the gophers and the prairie. But, you know, it was one of those places where they would have rolled up the sidewalks at 8 p.m. if we’d only had sidewalks. OK, we did have sidewalks, but not much else. You know, there were just the basic trappings of every Podunk on this continent: barber shop (a bit like Floyd’s in Mayberry), a couple of bars, the big brick post office, a few banks, no decent eatery, a couple of supermarkets, and a courthouse/police station/jail combo. That was about it, along with the residences. And not all that many of them, either.

I hated it.

I hated it because I was a city slicker. I hated it because the only movie house showed aged Doris Day/Rock Hudson 'screwball' comedies (always be wary of a comedy that is described as screwball, because 'cornball' will be the operative word,) and if your idea of fine dining included anything other than a big slab of dead steer, forget about it. Indeed, I don’t believe there was a corkscrew available for purchase because most merchants couldn’t conceptualize wine without a screw cap.

I was used to ethnic dining, subtitle movies, vast bookstores (here the literary emporium was the local pharmacy), big libraries, live theatre, and that special feeling that comes from walking along a city street when it is raining slightly and the neon lights are reflected in the wet streets. There’s a classic photo of the late James Dean walking through Times Square on just such a day (see illustration). It may be a New York scene, but it has a nostalgic and homey feeling to me.

Well, in recent years my dorky little town has grown. It has grown and grown and for a while the growth was a benevolent trend for me. I no longer had to travel to the big city in order to get big city fixes. No, it’s not yet a big city, but it’s a pretty appreciable middle-sized one. And, I have tempered my views a bit, and find middle-sized cities suit me admirably these days. As it has grown real estate prices have shot up and increased our equity in our home substantially. Good stuff, huh?

We now have public transit buses and good libraries, and choices in movies, theatre and some genuinely fine places to get some of the better ethnic foodstuffs to be found anywhere. Yep, it’s all a good thing – except …

The exception being that when a community starts to exhibit substance in size, it also inherits the problems that come with it. Such frustrations as traffic gridlock (when I first came here you only dealt with the sort of traffic tie-ups that happened when 11 cars got stuck behind some guy’s farm tractor), increased wear on roads, bridges, and other elements of infrastructure. You also get such social issues as drug trafficking, prostitution, street people, and homelessness for those who cannot afford those inflated price houses that I mentioned. You also get, damn it all, outsiders! People who come from elsewhere and try to inject their ‘city slicker’ ideas on people who were quite content not to have interlopers and foreigners here.

Sure glad I didn’t bring any of those ways with me when I came here.