How does the old-timer we call Ray maneuver his walker, slowly, deliberately, inching ahead on his faulty legs over lumpy snowpack? Or the man so fat he can barely walk on a carpet, yet somehow makes it over icy snow to his car? Why don’t they move to Pasadena? And why do teens and adults fraternize in more numbers than Pasadena, and politeness in general is more prevalent? Why do they worry less about security, shoplifting, burglary and assault? They leave their car engines running while they shop.Such questions intrigued me from the first week here. From my previous posts, you see that I am the self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and the recorder of progress of the advancing ice on the lake. My duties include the poetic inspiration of cold dogs, admiration of hardy fir trees, photography of snowflakes, ice crystals and bicycle tracks, and the study of friendliness. All these duties I perform while learning to survive bitter cold. I may say without boasting that I am faithfully doing my job. Still the city council does not admit me into the list of town officers, nor grant me even a small stipend. My records, they have not audited. As a poet said, “Poets are the last on the food chain.”
Maybe I will write an exposition of Now in Frostbite Falls. To interview and think until truths rise up. I wonder what it is like to know what everyone on an island is thinking at the same time—this little conclave of souls separated from the rest of society, especially in bad weather. If you lined all those thoughts up, would it add up to anything? So when this place came to me, it seemed a good opportunity to try to get my arms around a people and a place and a time. A community capsule of sorts. It took a while to figure what my subject is today.About two inches of snow fell last night and it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The temperature rose with the coming of snow, clear up to plus nine, and walking was a pleasure, without face covering. “Nice day,” said an old lady with a cane in one hand and dog leash in the other. Slipping is less of a hazard, and more people are outside.
But subtracting Holiday cheer, I wonder if the greater friendliness I sense here comes with hardship. It’s not a hard life, but it’s harder than Pasadena, as far as weather and isolation affect hardness. I wonder if cave people were friendlier because their lives were harder.
I love seeing Katrina! She's already become a symbol pf friendliness for us from your stories, and it is so nice to see her smiling face!
ReplyDeleteDo you have French Toast everyday? Or is it French Toast Day there? I see that the variety of breakfast depends on 1, 2 or 3 pieces of anything! Have you met any vegetarians there?
(The lunch and soup of the day are not...)
Any skating there yet?
smiles from Kathabela to Sharon and Katrina!
Katrina is a doll. The cafe looks exactly as it should, with knotty pine and thick white diner china. Perfect. The photos look like Christmas, and from your stories the town feels like Christmas. Lucky for all of us that you landed so well. Liz
ReplyDeleteLets get down to some serious business here. Your post about the friendliness in a small town intrigues me as well. Bottom line is this, people are less scared. (period) In many senses its a better life there. I have lived in small towns and clearly big cities. And life in both places can be beautiful, especially if you make it beautiful. You have the option. But small towns lend themselves to people being friendlier. This just isn't an hypothesis either, this is a fact, plain and simple. It doesn't mean its better to live in a small town than a big city, it just means that as you are walking around the world, people who don't know you, because they are in a small town, are not as scared of the world. Its also a function of the number of people you see. In a big city you see lots of people, in a small town, you don't see as many different people, and therefore when you see someone you tend to be more friendly. When I am in a small town walking along the street, people even wave at me from their cars as they drive by. Now this is friendly. People also wave at other people as they drive by the other car. When I am in New Mexico and drive by another car out in the country its sometimes common to wave at the other car. Can you imagine waving at the other car as you race by it on some gigantic freeway in a big city. Any way, this is clearly a subject I am VERY passionate about, and I am glad to see you are passionate as well.
ReplyDeleteKathabela, you are not supposed to read the fine print. That blackboard message is like the one outside your door, not changed in weeks. It means, “Eat whatever you want, it doesn’t cost very much.”
ReplyDeleteLiz, yes, she is a doll. And the café is indeed perfect, mostly because of her. “I’ve been a waitress since I was twelve,” she says. It does feel like Christmas, even though people don’t put up many lights and decorations. But with green boughs and white snow all about, it just feels right.
Michael, I agree that small town people are friendlier on average. I think if you plot friendliness on the Y-axis against population on the X, you get a down-sloping line. But as I observe this cold place, I am wondering about friendliness versus hardship. Take the Island of Lanai in Hawaii, for example, having a population near that of International Falls. Does that idyllic climate, compared to this harsh winter and mosquito summer, make them less friendly? I’m not doing science here, just wondering. I tend to think that the greater the common hardship, the greater the friendliness.
Ah yes: "Welcome Home Darlings!"
ReplyDeleteI live in a small town, the Caltech campus. Good description of the friendliness, thank you Michael and Sharon, and there is both hardship and idyllic climate...!
Yes, I do like the small-town feeling that seems to begin at edge of the Caltech campus. But that is not a cross-section of Pasadena, rather a very special group.
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