Tag Archives: small town living

Privacy? Oh, Puh-leez!

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Because I am extremely busy this last week of Jack being gone (found a backhoe!) and because the Edward Snowden stuff has made everybody jumpy on the subject, I am re-running here a blog I did back before my book came out, on the expectation of privacy in small towns. At that time, people were concerned about Facebook, but it’s been updated to encompass the phone hacking concerns. Enjoy.

I don’t know why people are so het up about privacy issues concerning the government and our phone calls. First of all, the government has shown itself so thoroughly efficient in other matters, we should all be quaking in our boots that they’ve set up a phone monitoring plan? HA!

But honestly, living as Jack and I do in a town of five thousand, we know there is no such thing as privacy. Never has been, not for us rural dwellers, anyway.

In a small town, when you pass the grocery store (THE grocery store) you can tell by the license plates or car makes who is shopping there. Same with the liquor store. Or any other {ahem} establishment a body might frequent. Go to the doctor at 11 am, and by 5 pm someone from your church calls to find out what’s wrong with you.

That’s why pastors have parishoners buy their hard stuff. That’s why teachers drive to the state line to buy lingerie. That’s why Jack and I gave up on selling addiction recovery books in our shop.

In a small town, what your child did to get in trouble at school makes it home before s/he does. The poor kid gets it twice, because during lunch the school nurse, who happens to be your sister’s worst enemy, calls HER sister to gloat about whatever it was, and five minutes later her sister has told her friend who has told another friend who happens to be your pastor’s wife…..

The other day, I checked a book of folktales out of the library; it was titled “The Rat Catcher’s Daughter.” When our termite control man showed up to do his monthly routine a couple of days later, he said, “You know, we take care of rodents, too.”

“We don’t have a problem with them. Never seen one. Must be the staff cats,” my husband replied.

The man winked. “Sure, right, but if Wendy’s thinking she can catch them herself, it’s not much more money to have mice and rats in your contract, and they’re hard work. Don’t worry; we’ll be discreet.”

Jack gave him a blank look. Turns out our termite guy’s wife volunteers at the library, saw me check out the book with the misleading title, and noted it to her husband, knowing we were his customers. Jack showed Tom the folktale collection. They had a good laugh. All in a day’s small town living.

And y’all are worried about privacy loss due to our so-very-efficient government trying to glean info from phone calls? Puhleaze….

Eulis

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Yesterday a friend came by and said her husband was at the funeral parlor, one of his friends from the Mutual breakfast gang had died. The Mutual is the diner that time decided to ignore. Two eggs and coffee with toast are $2.50, and the booths are dark fake wood Formica. The staff are cheerfully surly and the regulars are mostly retired guys in seed caps.

Jack is a regular (but he wears a flat cap) so of course we were startled, and asked in unison, “WHO?”

Eulis was a Korean War Veteran, a long haul truck driver (as was his son after him) a loving husband and an attentive father. He made trips with his son John until about 3 months before the last stroke laid him low. Eulis was the only guy I ever knew who swore coffee tasted different in Styrofoam cups than in ceramic mugs.

Over the years Eulis never said much to me beyond, “Waaalll, there she is; how’s Mrs. Jack today?” Sometimes he’d say, “You know, your husband’s a fine man, Missy, a fine man.” And I’d smile and agree.

Naturally, Jack loved Eulis.

As we measured out our lives with Mutual coffee spoons, we watched Eulis walk tall and proud, then with a hearing aid, then a cane, and finally a slow, booth-to-booth shuffle, stopping to regain his balance with a hand clamped to each seat back.

His wife Annie was brilliant. “That the best you can do?” she’d goad him when he slumped or rested over-long. Annie used to be a nurse. She’d been married to Eulis many years, and she knew how to keep him standing to the very end. He was a proud man.

And a fixture to us, here in the community. Eulis was as much a part of Mutual mornings as the chipped ceramic mugs he drank from. His cap with the “Korean Veteran” lettering. His wire frame glasses. His quiet, tall presence.

About two months ago a mutual (Mutual) acquaintance came by the shop and said, “Wendy, you know who’d make a really good book? Eulis. He’s got some life story. And he’s such a nice guy. You should go talk to him. I think he’d do it.”

“Sure,” I said, my mind going to the slow shuffle I’d last seen him doing. Step. Hand clamp. Rest. Shift. Step. Annie behind him all the way, holding him up with her careful, aimed teasing. I resolved to find time soon.

There’s an African proverb that says, “When an old person dies, a library burns.”

In his obituary, Eulis made all his fellow coffee drinkers from the Mutual honorary pallbearers.