When in a Small town, what to expect
Small towns were really pleasant places to be. Filly was thinking this as she stood in line at the local small town store. The lady in the black apron with grey hair pulled up in a clip asked her how she was doing and started checking the food on the counter, wiping it with a paper towel whenever something wet rolled up.
When Filly asked about the price of the cereal, which was on sale, even though she had only bought two, and should have bought three in order to get the discount, the checker said she would give her the discount. “Gonna make your life easier “ she said with a “ha” at the end. A sort of snorting laugh. What a friendly soul! “Thank you “ Filly said.
The lady had placed all the items carefully in the bag and had kept cold things together. She was pleasant and efficient, and Filly was glad that she seemed to like her job. Shopping had been an easy experience.
And when she had been walking earlier, and was watching the sun come up, there had been a yellow butterfly that had danced in the breeze ahead of her, almost like it was leading the way. The butterfly dipped and fluttered and flew haphazardly.
But the flowers everywhere gave plenty of real estate for the butterfly to land on. The butterfly was followed by two hummingbirds who sat on the flower pots by the back deck and sucked nectar out of them…then buzzed off. The remote cabin was a haven for butterfly’s and hummingbirds, mountain blue birds, deer and antelope and even a red fox and bunnies. And of course the horses that lived nearby and the white Great Pyrenees dogs.
Later Filly had stopped at the small town gas station that sold home made fudge. She bought six flavors each time. This time it was Peanut butter, Chocolate walnut, chocolate caramel sea salt, Chocolate mint, and pecan praline fudge. The squares were compact but thick, and wrapped in crinkly thick clear cellophane. The little white boxes they were placed in had a small plastic knife for cutting.
The store also had all kinds of drinks like root beer’s, ginger drinks, cherry colas and vanilla sodas. There was a little display of candy and the side bar had blue bell ice cream. It was one of her favorite stores because it was always cute and full of delicious treats to send family.
Even when she was at the thrift store, and had picked up a little cloth doll and asked the price, the lady said that it was a great buy but did Filly think the price was too much. Talking to the customer to get feedback was really heartwarming for her. It made her want to spend more money there so she picked out an armload of books as well as some barbie doll furniture for the doll house.
These were things in the now…things that happened every day that she could appreciate. Small town blessings. In the present.
And then there was the small town past.
She wondered if other people had ever traveled with someone who had a medical device that they did not want anyone to know about. She had created some code words for it. So that if it was not very well hidden, it could be adjusted discretely. Her code words had not worked. “Isn’t it hot in here, she said when she knew that the device needed adjusting… as they had planned. But when there was no response, she said “It is REALLY hot in here”…still no response. She thought it was funny. So much for code words.
They had devised code words that had been meant to communicate something OTHER than how hot it was. Some communication can seem like it is doing one thing, but actually be another way. That also was a small town thing that people understood. Like kids making up code languages, and adding letters or numbers or having secrets as a game… for fun.
Filly remembered when she was growing up in a small town, and at her Catholic school, when she had to go to religious class, the boys always had a code too. When the priest would come in to teach the class, the boys would raise their hands and ask about “premarital sex”, or about “Porn” which would launch the priest into a sort of diatribe that would last the entire hour.
Their code was to distract, distract, distract. The boys did not end up having to learn about the actual topic that was supposed to have been discussed, like perhaps how to avoid the seven deadly sins, and did not really care about the priest’s answer to the topic they used for their “diversion” question. So in this case, was it a good thing? Was there a way to not let that same mistake keep being made in the present?
Filly thought that the media was like those boys in her religion class, these days. The run of the mill people like herself, had questions, about the border, about the economy, about inflation and giant debt and taxation, and every time the question was asked, the response was a “diversion” tactic. Did Filly realize that the glacier in “where ever whatever” had melted an inch in the last zillion years. (diversion). Gender, Ukraine, free money, and much more, were all diversions to keep the public from paying attention to the real problems the majority of people faced and needed real solutions to.
Filly realized that in her religion class, instead of watching open mouthed, while the classmates successfully distracted the priest, she should have said something. “Father, the boys are just trying to distract you because they like keeping us off topic so that they do not have to pay attention and have also fooled you” she should have said.
Back then as a kid, she seemed quiet and shy but now she was more likely to speak up than to let important topics be brushed aside by diversion tactics from the likes of Kamala, Biden, and the Democrats. It was seriously juvenile.
The diversions back in Religion class did not benefit her, because she had wasted time where she could have learned more about those concrete things that would help her when times were tough. She missed out because she had not learned to respond to diversion tactics. People were so easy to distract by bringing up dogs, instead of police, gender-less bathrooms instead of abortion, free money instead of government corruption. By ignoring the significant problems and forcing people to pay attention to the wrong things, repairs would never happen.
Filly has questions that she wanted to have answers too. 1). Why did inflation, which was much lower when Trump was president, rise to the heights it is at now, if current Biden Kamala policies were as effective as the admin. says it was. 2) Why did the democratic party always want to spend more of the public’s income by “giving away” free stuff to non citizens? Instead of giving away stuff, why not just reduce taxes because taxes pay for the stuff that the democrats claim “govt.” is giving away 3) Can the Democrats explain what socialism is and explain where they think it has succeeded…because socialistic policies seem to be the norm for democrats these days and socialism has failed.
Filly hoped that Trump would stay quiet…and be concise, because evil destroys itself. And diversions would be obvious…and would fail. Jesus did not debate with evil. He just said Begone Satan.
Small town people understood small blessings, like a friendly grocery store where people were not swiping to steal a whole counter of cosmetics without paying for them. Like a gas station attendant saying that “this soda is on me” because he could see that his customer was frazzled.
Like a neighborly clerk at a thrift store making conversation and being interested in the customer for no reason other than to be kind. Like butterflies and hummingbirds and fudge… small towns seem to find these little things worthwhile, and these things seem to fade away in the big cities to be replaced by greed, graffiti, snobbery, crime, and government corruption. No…not any more…it was time to reject the self gratifying politicians who lined their own pockets, and were funded by the enemy. People were not blind any more. Big cities could again start to have small town feelings.
Filly knew small towns…and small towns knew the truth. The battle ground was in their thinking, and now that they knew about diversions…they would not be fooled. The media was like a liberal cat in the hat…only little cat Z had been used already…so the mess was still all over the place. Conservatives and liberals together could clean it up…and protect the little guy at the same time. They could recognize that for the most part, they all wanted the same thing. They wanted a small town feel… like Regan had fostered. No diversions .