Gotta Love The Small Town Life
Greetings from the island everyone. Hope all of you are doing well and enjoyed your Fourth of July weekend. Barnacle and I stayed on the island, having no desire to venture to the mainland and endure the chaos that is. We watched the fireworks display Saturday night from across the bay and certainly enjoyed the spectacular display. I’ve heard mention that the annual fireworks show in the small town of Port O’Connor outshines the displays of much larger towns. Kudos to those shouldering the responsibility for this annual community treat.
You know there is something to be said, and admired, about small town ways and the bonds that connect residents as more of an extended family environment. Growing up in Seadrift, the small town ambience of togetherness was instilled from the get-go in all of us. There are a group of my first grade friends and I, forty four years later, that still stay in touch and get together whenever we can. Some of them are even taking a cruise to Alaska together this summer. . . I think that maybe I hate them now.
In times of need, small town communities come together in the form of benefits, bake sales and donations. To this day, my mother and sister, along with the rest of the local ladies, always make a food dish to drop off at the home of funeral families, and monetary assistance is always given to that family to help out. And for some odd reason, small town deaths have the tendency to occur three at a time in close proximity of one another. Go figure.
Seadrift and Port O’Connor are two of the greatest small town coastal communities that you will ever drive through, and there won’t be a single traffic light to impede your way. Businesses giving credit until you can pay later, of which I hadn’t even heard of since Cruz Gonzales owned Pic Pac many years ago. Postmasters putting stamps on your letters for you after you forgot to do so (and not even calling you an idiot for it, which I deserved), produce managers saving old vegetables for your chickens, newspaper editors giving you extra time to submit your article due to old-age acts of forgetfulness. The small town deeds of kindness, which aren’t even given a second thought, go on and on.
I’m very happy to have spent my childhood, and now my later years, in a small town atmosphere; I truly feel that I am a better person because of it. There appears to be a bit of truth in the theory that the road often leads back to your roots, and not a traffic light one to block that road.
Well, the new chickens started laying eggs a few weeks ago, thank goodness. I’m now seeing a return on the hundreds of pounds of chicken feed they have been devouring; forty six chickens eat a lot of feed. I’m down to one rooster, the others having met their maker, and if this remaining one continues to crow at 4:00 a.m., I’ll be down to NO roosters.
The watermelon and cantaloupes are doing great. The recent rains we’ve been having sure did kick start them in growing. And I’m continuing to bring seaweed from the beach and compost it down along with chicken manure, coffee grounds and crushed egg shells to make a wonderful organic fertilizer to add to my garden soil.
I ran in this past Sunday to attend the 50th Mikush family reunion, my moms side, in Hallettsville. It was great seeing relatives that I hadn’t laid eyes on in years, especially my beautiful cousins, the Cejka girls and the Koerth girls. The older I get, even though I’m a hermit by nature, family becomes more special and I’ll take the time to spend quality time with them.
Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a great day.
