Jennifer McBride

Typewriter Tales

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you have to admit there’s something special about small towns.

My high school had a population bigger than the entire city of Plains, yet you never saw more faces at a volleyball game than you do here. Since the thing I love most about watching sports games is the feeling that you’re somehow part of a team, seeing high school fans running around wearing gorilla masks and polka dot shoes does give me a certain thrill.

At the last performance of “Grease,” there wasn’t a seat left in the house. At my high school’s thespian exploits (I was a black-clad techie) we were lucky if we got 300 people to show up over our two-week run.

I don’t know why the two experiences seem so different. I have a theory that it has to do with connectedness. In small schools, you can’t quite get away with the isolation. I hung out with the “we’re far too intelligent to submit ourselves to the tyranny of arithmetic” slackers and gothic outcasts. I found other friends in the ever-so-nice nerds, but anyone else, I didn’t know them or want to know them. They probably felt the same about me.

Here, I don’t think you have that kind of luxury. You grow up with these people. You hang out with these people. You become friends with them, even if they don’t necessarily share your interests because there’s absolutely no choice.

At a high school graduation I covered in St. Ignatius, the teacher who gave the commencement speech said that kids from small towns have a natural advantage in the quote-on-quote “real world.” They learn to work with people they dislike because they have to, and that gives them natural conflict-resolution skills. Small town people can be the leaders and team-builders of the big-city future, if they want to be.

So here’s to small towns, where you support your athletes and your thespians, even if they’re unlikely to bring home any gold medals or Tony awards. Here’s to close friends, family and people you know you can trust.