Small town living

I love living in Mineral Wells...even though it has a terrible reputation for being a loser town, with a bad drug problem and depressed economy.  I admit, when I meet someone who moved here (without ties to the community), I'm always surprised and ask them WHY?  What brought them HERE?  Because it is a town that has seen better days, has a bad drug problem and a depressed economy.  So why do I love it?

I've always known Mineral Wells.  My mom grew up here.  I spent almost all of my childhood holidays here.  As soon as I turned 18 and was ready to be independent, I moved here.  I could be "on my own", but still have the safety net of my grandparents and several aunts and uncles and cousins.  At that time, it was VERY cheap to live here.  The Baker Hotel had died and the air force base had been shut down, so there was nothing to bring people here.  Housing was dirt cheap.  Even though the employment opportunities weren't great, I was able to find a job in a relatively short time.  I lived with Granny and Granddaddy until I had saved up enough to get my own apartment; and then I lived here until just before Dennis and I married...about a year.  However, when my family tried to talk us into settling down here, I told them, "No way will we ever live in Mineral Wells!"  Dennis was a forester and there were no forests in this part of Texas!

Skip ahead 28 years.  Dennis had been starved out of the forestry profession and was working for the post office.  Our kids were about grown.  We were tired of living in East Texas.  Mom's health was failing rapidly, and I really needed to be closer to help out.  So guess what...we moved to Mineral Wells.  (Never say never!)  It was no longer cheap to live here (because of the Barnett Shale boom), but it was cheaper than any other place this side of Ft. Worth.  Weatherford was growing TOO fast and becoming just a suburb of FW.  We wanted to find a place in the country, but real estate prices were prohibitive.  So we opted for this small town.  We can be anywhere in town in 10 minutes or less...our most visited locations in 5 minutes.  We don't have traffic jams or long lines at Walmart.  It is quiet.  People are friendly and polite.  And in spite of its problems, there is a lot of HEART in this town.  People in this community are quick to give of their time and resources to help one another.

What brought this up today?  I was out on my morning walk.  The weather was perfect...in the 50's with a beautiful blue sky accented with some puffy white clouds.  We have a great neighborhood for walking!  The streets aren't very busy and there are a lot of shade trees lining the roads.  Two separate gentlemen, who were out in their front yards enjoying the gorgeous morning, spoke to me as I walked past.  I'm not talking about just a "hello", but actually addressed me.  ("Hi!  How are you?  Beautiful day we're having!  I'm ____, what's your name?")  Where does that happen other than small towns?  And these weren't isolated incidents.  People here are "comfortable".  It is easy to engage in casual conversation with folks that you run into going about your day.  We had some great conversations with folks when we had our yard sale!  People were excited to hear about Sheila's adoption plans and wished her well.  There is a strong sense of "community". 

Yes, we have our problems.  Yes, there are things that I'd love to see improved.  But at the end of the day, I've very thankful to be living in this small town.  And I hope to live out the rest of my life here.