There are some drawbacks to living on a country road far from basic services as grocery stores and gas stations, but the benefits cause me to breathe deeply in gratefulness.
Parcels do not arrive easily to this community and businesses usually require a street address before they will take an order. The village is still in the process of developing addresses in this 100-year-old community and so we kind of make them up. I always put my street address as #1 Railway Avenue because there used to be a railway in town with a commercial grain elevator on the street. Couriers could easily spot this landmark and would drop a parcel off there. The arriving whistle of the railway trains are but a memory now and the elevator is a privately used one. However, I continue to use this address name. Sometimes parcels are dropped off at the Snack Shack or the bar but if they are dropped off at the school, the secretary calls me to make sure it is okay to send it home with one of my kidlets, as she certainly would not want to spoil a surprise if it was a gift for one of them.
The school is the heart of our community and it is run like a family, with the older students having to take responsibility for helping the younger ones. All of these young people have the opportunity to learn to be “in-community” early in life.
Yesterday was my daughter Jillian’s last day of school before Thanksgiving weekend and with utmost appreciation and awe, she told me not to make her a lunch that day because the teachers were preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for the students. She told me how excited the teachers were when they told the students about the menu and how much they appreciate these youngsters.
I think that I will take the shortcomings of this wee village, because the advantages overflow in abundance.
…Ellyn
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