"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."
--Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days


I’d mentioned in my last post how much I enjoy working in a small town, and for some reason felt like I needed to write more about that.

After ten years working in Albion and after talking at length with literally thousands of people, I’ve come to realize one major presumption people make about small town life that is a complete myth and that is this: that most people living there are doing so by choice.

I think that we think of small towns as places full of quaint, folksy, down-to-earth people who have chosen to live a simpler, quieter existence that has given them happiness. And while this is undoubtedly true in some cases, for many people Albion wasn’t a place they chose, it was a place that chose them.

And given the chance, they’d much rather be someplace else.

Or maybe I’m being too pessimistic. I guess what I mean is that at least at the start, many small town folks are looking to get out. Young people don’t see themselves staying in the same neighborhoods for the rest of their lives, and neither do young professionals fresh out of college who find their first job at the local high school or an insurance agency.

But then I think something happens. Maybe it’s a sense of resignation about how unlikely it is that things will really change, because for things to change you need to make that change happen. And change is hard. No one’s going to hand you the keys to your new house and a contract working for a Fortune 500 company, those are things you have to seek out, to work for.

Or maybe, too, people come to a realization that different doesn’t always equal good; and that you can’t move away from your problems, they follow you wherever you go.

And what I’ve seen in people is that they grow roots that would be painful to pull out. Friendships are made. You find people actually willing to babysit your kids, for no other reason than because they like you. You find a local church that’s a good fit, you know your neighbors by name.

You get hugged in the grocery store.

It’s really funny, too, because I don’t think we realize when we’re young just how much our values are going to change. There are so many things I love about Albion that are hard to put a name on or point a finger at, things I just didn't even consider when I was younger.

Like the way people here talk. They have this ability to just state the obvious -- Sure is cold! or Wow! That truck is loud! We all do that, I guess, but small town people do this is in abundance.

And their speech is funny in other ways, too, and even though sometimes they say things you’d find horribly offensive at other times you can’t help but smile listening to them.

I overheard someone ask a local tavern owner one time how he was doing on a Friday afternoon when the place was lined out the door with customers: “Busy as a one-armed paper hanger, today, boy!” was the reply.

And Albion has money, too, not the Donald Trump billionaire kind but a better kind, I think, a hidden kind. Unlike the flash you’d see in big cities it’s mostly tucked away in corners and hard-to-find places. It’s difficult to tell who the richest man in town really is and maybe that’s the way it should be. I think this says something good about Albion -- anyone who has to show you how much money he makes has a seriously flawed values system in my opinion.

Let me add here that life is anything but idyllic in Albion. I’ll clarify that in case you think I might be seeing things through blinders or sugarcoating the bad to make it seem better than it is. Though many people have found a sense of belonging in the community and comment regularly on how much they enjoy living here – I hear this quite regularly – there is a also a price to pay for raising a family in a place this isolated.


Like crime for example. While the statistics would say crime rates are relatively level in Albion, crime itself is present in very shocking ways in a town of just a few thousand people.

Until a few years ago there was a convenience store down the street from my office. It is now closed. Not for lack of business, but because an 18 year old who used to hang around while his friend worked the counter was playing with a 9 mm loaded semi-automatic handgun one evening and accidentally shot and killed a co-worker.

I knew the victim Bobby well; saw him many, many days walking down the street.

And Albion is a town drowning in poverty. There isn't any hustle and bustle here, because there isn't anywhere in town everybody needs to get to. As I drive to the post office each day, the route I take passes through a section of town in which more than half the houses over an area several blocks long are boarded up and condemned; not repossessed, not vacant, but actually tagged by the city for demolition. And if the economic climate in town ever improves to any great degree and the city can afford to do it, people will be glad to see the houses torn down.

Around the fourth year after I came to Albion the economy really tanked. Two of the town’s largest employers closed up, a factory and a foundry. Both were the kinds of places people hoped to retire from with full benefits. Pensions -- for those who’d had 29 ½ instead of the full 30 years -- gone. (Yes, this did actually happen to a few people; and many more had 20+ years of experience.) Then a few businesses down the street closed – retail places like restaurants, and an office supply store.

Then the theater changed ownership. Then it closed. Then it changed ownership again. And re-opened, and then closed again. And then finally it is now under new management and is open once again for who knows how long.

Then the hospital closed – the hospital. Not to expand, or relocate, it was simply gone presumably because the majority of its patients were on Medicare or Medicaid or didn’t have any insurance at all. The administration simply couldn’t afford to keep it open; you can’t really blame them. A hospital is, at the end of the day, a business.

But there is hope in Albion as well. People always seem to find it or create it. If the tide of poverty seems like it’s rising, then people are learning to swim.

A small retail space directly across the street from my office was renovated after a large donation was made by a local businessman to turn the building into a children’s hands-on museum. It is thriving, a beautiful, beautiful place where hundreds of school kids are bussed in each month. I watch them on warmer days walk hand-in-hand from the bright orange busses to the front door, corn-braids and miniature backpacks bobbing to the beat of their tiny steps. I love this. Children are supposed to be our hope, our future. Seeing their excitement, that's an easy thing to believe.

Albion has given me that.

The trouble is people look at the museum and say now that's what we need more of -- but are too willing to wait for someone else to bring it to them. This, too, comes with poverty.

A sense of hopelessness, of resignation.

I consider all of these things about Albion, knowing that I could make more money working in another city. But with larger cities I suppose come other problems – the stress of a longer commute, or if I moved, more expensive housing. And big city people.

So in staying here what do I gain? Besides folksy talk and friendly smiles?

In a town this size you’re treated like a celebrity for one thing; you walk into the store and everyone knows who you are, by name even. A lot of times I wouldn’t even have to show ID to cash a check. And almost everyone gets treated this way – so being a celebrity suddenly doesn’t seem so special. I love that.

I also love how people whose names I can’t remember come into my office and actually ask about my kids. I can't remember all my customers' names, but they know about how old my kids are. How cool is that? You can’t really put a price on having that – people actually caring about you. And you know they care because they remember.

And even though I work in a government office with very stringent rules and guidelines, people are rarely rude. Working at my last office I was cussed out to my face with grueling regularity, sometimes more than a dozen times in a given week.

But I think ultimately I’m still in Albion probably because like so many other people who never planned on staying, leaving would seem too difficult, the change too painful and too stressful. Albion has its flaws but it also has my roots and I think, for now, those are here to stay.