There are elements of a small town that forever stick with those of us that grew up in one. I wrote last week about my experience traveling back to the town where I grew up and Discussing Marine Environmental Protection at Berkeley Springs High School in Berkeley Springs, WV, but I didn't think much about the town I was visiting (for the first time in a year) until someone sent me this clipping from the local newspaper a few days ago.Aside from the real possibility that this is the first ever appearance of the words "Coast Guard" in the local weekly of this small town in a land locked state, it was certainly my first appearance in the publication since I was a kid. Now this is a newspaper that still is read mostly on paper; it's website is unremarkable and very outdated at best, and it traditionally does not publish the week between Christmas and New Years so that the staff can take some time off... but it's standard reading for almost everyone across the county. It's a small town.
Those of us that grew up in places like this have taken other tidbits with us to the "big city" (aside from bets that we lose with our officemates who swore that 'yes, the newspaper would cover that'). For better or worse, I want to be friends with my neighbors and my coworkers, to be connected to my community and to really view the places where I spend the most time -- my day job and the Coast Guard -- as communities unto themselves. I want to make sure the folks in another department at work have what they need, even if I have to go a bit out of my way to help make it happen, because I remember what it's like to have a mayor who runs the restaurant on main street, a school board president who built the local hotel, or a county commissioner who also happens own a bunch of cows living in a barn next to his house. In towns like that, you learn to do whatever needs to be done. One even has a chance to turn it into an opportunity: I have no doubt that I had the chance to do things as I got older, before leaving home, that were years ahead of my "pay grade" due to the simple fact that if someone didn't do it, it wasn't going to happen.
We even think in terms of projects because government and business where we grew up weren't big enough to have too many underway at one time. We would build a school. Then we would renovate another. Then there was a road to be replaced, or a courthouse to be rebuilt after a fire. A world with more going on at once, is less overwhelming and moreso a matter of doing everything we saw done growing up, but just making it all happen at one time. It's the art and discipline of tackling a problem, mobilizing to meet a challenge, getting the whole team on board, and then diligently bringing the thing to fruition. Learning to do that in the crucible of limited resources instills an approach to getting things done that lends itself well to getting many things done at once, and is one that I am not sure could ever be taught in a classroom.
Perfect? No. Idyllic? Certainly not. Happy to now live in the Washington, DC area and not there? Absolutely. There is much to do in the world and it isn't coming to Berkeley Springs, WV to get done, but there is much of Berkeley Springs, WV -- and other places like it -- that those of us who had the opportunity to grow up there can take out into that world. If you're not careful, they'll even put your picture in the paper when you come back to talk with high schoolers about your work.
How do you celebrate your roots and, more importantly, carry forth your old lessons learned and values gained into the larger world? What we experience clearly and strongly influences who we become. Village or city, everyone has something that sticks with them, and I think it's usually good and valuable.
