Posted by Leigh on October 28, 2008
Okay, so this morning I told about my hometown. When I started that post - it did have a point. Unfortunately, halfway through it, I had a minor meltdown, when the wind blew down two trees below my garage and got my dogs all worked up. Somewhere between taking them out to run off their excitement, checking the garage for damage and wondering what happened to whatever had been living in the brush near where the trees fell (as I know something has been living there - the dogs are always on alert when we walk that way, and you can hear something moving around in there.) I kind of lost the point I was trying to make about my hometown.
Anyways, as I mentioned before, I live over ten miles out of town, and about two miles outside of the little villiage where I handle the municipal authority (water plant). Two miles isn’t that far, some would say, but some days it feels like much much farther.
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Posted by Leigh on
Historic Courthouse
The town I consider my hometown, although I don’t really live in it, but over ten miles outside of it, is considered a Historic Town. It was settled in the 1790’s, and a lot of the buildings are the originals from the early 1800’s that have been or are being restored.
It’s a quaint little town situated at the intersections of three rivers, Main Street is just one level above the rivers, and the rest of the town is built on the surrounding hills, with the streets terraced above it. It’s also the county seat, with a historic courthouse, which is currently being vacated for renovation and restoration.
The town really plays up the historic aspects, by touting itself as “Historic ….” * . The Chamber of Commerce puts on a Victorian Christmas every year, complete with sleigh rides and shop owners in period dress, and tours of some of the older Victorian houses close to main street. The town is always decked out for each holiday whether it be Christmas or Halloween. And the residents fight any type of change, they want their town to stay the same.
In some ways that’s a good thing, the historic district should stay as close to original as possible, it’s what brings in the tourists, I suppose. But the influential residents never stop there. They seem to fight any new business that tries to take up residence in the area, whether or not they’ll be near the historic district or not. That is what will eventually kill the town.
At the 2000 census the population was in the 4,000’s, not many more than in 1910 when the population was approximately 3,000.
The school where four generations of my family have gone.
In 2004, a longtime resident of the area, I don’t know much of his history or know him personally *, but
everyone in the area - probably the whole county at least knows of him by name and sight, decided to adopt the entire 90 acres of the historic district through PA Cleanways Adoption program. Since then no matter what time of day, what type of weather, anytime you go through town, he can be found keeping the streets clean. The town has never looked better since he adopted it, and I doubt there is anyone better known in the area than him. It’s people like him that make towns like this one worth visiting! Even at 8am this morning, when it was cold and rainy, as I drove me daughter to school - there he was on main street picking up litter!
*Names are withheld to protect this blog from being searched for these terms.
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Posted by Leigh on October 22, 2008
Living in a small town is great, except for the drawbacks. 
My home area can be considered to be at least three years behind most of the nation when it comes to anything from fashion - which is great if you’re a jeans and t-shirt person like me - to limited availability of services and stores.
What bothers me the most about small town life though, is the communications black hole. We have a choice of approximately two cellular phone services AT&T or Verizon - the rest have yet to get signal around here, DSL is not available everywhere, heck I only got it last year, and there is really no competition for any of the services, which means higher prices.
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Posted by Leigh on October 17, 2008
Every Mom Wants to Work From Home
I work from home and live in a very small town, so everyone knows that I work from home. What they don’t understand though, is what exactly I do.
I get calls all the time from people who know me, usually young mothers, timidly asking me what type of home based business I run, and wondering if they could do it too. They’re usually very disappointed when I tell them that I mostly design small business websites, and that it does require programming experience. I always feel bad when I hear the disappointment in their voices.
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