Mark-AL says:

I was raised in a small town in Alabama. When I was in public elementary school (in the mid 70s), our town’s population was under 500. Today it is around 1500. Our grade school enrollment was 48, and our school was housed in a converted barn. 5th through 8th grades were set up in the barn loft. There were 6 students in my 8th grade class. My primary 8th grade teacher taught a few 7th grade classes (in the same “classroom”), and he also taught 6th grade math as well. The man is dead now, but at his death he had forgotten more math than most of us would ever learn. The local Catholic priest taught English to the 4th through 8th grades–a Benedictine priest who loved the classics, actually incorporated “logic” into both the 7th and 8th grade English curricula, and who respected the written word and “expected” us to share his enthusiasm for literature and composition. He forgot we were all farmers! Downtown consisted of a bank, a service station/tire repair/small engine repair, a restaurant of sorts, an antique (actually 2nd hand) store, a 4 lane bowling alley, a sausage shop and a drug store with a soda bar. I don’t recall if we even had a policeman. The major industry was farming, including sod farming. My dad raised goats and sold goat cheese. Life was simple. No one was wealthy except the farmer who farmed sod. But his kids dressed like the rest of us, were also well behaved and respected their elders. I learned to love engineering when, after my freshman year in high school, my dad told me to build a 30′ tall brick 3-wythe thick silo on the farm. He gave me one instruction: “Get it done.” I did. We were in hurricane country. It took me almost 2 years to build. While the town served me well when I was growing up, I wouldn’t place my sons in that environment today. While there were obvious disadvantages of growing up there (I didn’t see my first live play until I arrived in South Bend, Indiana when I was 19 in undergrad school), we did learn to respect and help our neighbors, to hold the door for and answer “yes, mam and yes, sir” to anyone over the age of 30 (which my boys do to this day!). Small towns can be a special place. I hope to return to mine when I retire. I really hope I can be so lucky.