I love technology. My first cell phone was an office-sized contraption that fit in a bag resting on the passenger seat — in the passenger’s lap if I was trying to qualify for the HOV lane — which was about three hours drive from where I lived and worked.
Cell phones were something of a novelty. In fact, one could go to the county fair, step inside the Ag Building, and find Cellular One sales folk demonstrating their latest phone, calling each other from opposite ends of the building.
That was about as far as the signal went. After that, a gentleman could do better standing at the door of the church dinner booth, hollering loud as he could toward his spouse, “Mother! You want some beans with that hot dog?”
Fourteen women would turn around to see who was offering dinner. Those who recognized him would hustle over to catch him before he caught onto the fact 13 of them weren’t on the family payroll.
Nearly every small town had its own post office. The postmaster — let’s call him David — didn’t sell stationery or ballpoint pens, but he did know who was married and who was getting married, and who had a girlfriend on the side and whose wife didn’t seem to mind.
If you were looking for something in particular, say, a package from Hanover Direct with a new oil cloth for the picnic table in your back yard, you’d only have to tell him once. For weeks until the package arrived, you could walk in the door and he’d tell without you asking whether it had been worth your time to make the trip to town.
If you needed directions, David would be the fellow to ask — as long as you were not driving a brown truck.
Neighbors were spread out, but not seeing them every day didn’t mean being unaware of whose kid had joined the military, whose was home on leave, whose grandma had died and whose sow had just pigged out.
Neighborhoods were defined by the apple trees and peach orchards rather than by the color paint applied to the houses.
Last week, a developer told existing residents the neighborhood would not be diminished by his project — 220 new homes would be the neighborhood, and the people living there would not miss the pasture that had been paved over to make a place for them to live in the country. Unfortunately, he probably is correct.
But the change in population really comes home when Grady the Golden Retriever and I walk on the battlefield, and encounter another human walking with a dog. A couple of years ago, I walked the same road with another dog, and people would stop and ooh about how pretty she was, and they’d bring their dogs and children over so all could say hello.
Now people cross the street to keep their kids and dogs separated from the stranger sharing their road. One jogger this week picked her dog up by its collar and carried it past, rather than just let a couple of canines howdy.
Since we never talked, I can only guess that the humans — most of them, anyway — are recent arrivals to Adams County, and as much as they moved here for the rural atmosphere, they have brought with them their urban fears and suspicions.
We can talk about preserving our rural way of life, but, except for the safety and convenience of a local food supply, it’s not the fields and lowing cattle we need to preserve.
We need a preservation easement on neighborliness.
© 2007. Readers may contact John by email at jmesseder@comcast.net.
