To most of the folks here, “we’re from a big city”. To us, these nice folks just don’t know how to behave like big city folks. Their gracious attitudes are infectious and we been graced with many examples of how one is supposed to behave around these parts. Here is my first installment of “Observations of Small Town Living”
- The day we moved in the neighbor stopped by to welcome us and give us some of his home made blackberry jam. We later found a friend in Joe who arrives across the treet each day at 8:00 a.m. and leaves at 7:00 p.m., to take care of his ailing brodder (how he pronounces “brother”).
- A little old lady stopped Thomas on the street to ask if he’d help her unload her vacuum cleaner out of her car so she could get it repaired (he robbed her and left her in an alley of course).
- The post office has two postal workers (Sherry and Bob) and is closed between 12:00 and 1:00 for lunch. Not to worry, Sherry explained, if the counter door is closed but you see their car outside, just knock and if you need stamps or are picking up a package they be happy to get them for you.
This is the Cocolalla Post Office. It’s about 2 miles from our property and 15 miles from our rental home. - Thomas had to pick up a package from UPS. Kim, a local UPS employee, explained that if you arrive after 6:00 pm at UPS, the customer service door is closed and locked… “but feel free to go around and enter the employee’s door and you’ll find one of us there until 8:30 or so to help you.”
- There are about four times in the day that you can make appointments and they’re rather loosely defined as follows: “Morning” is from about 9:00 am until noon; “Afternoon” which is from noon until 5:00 pm. “Evening” is between 5:00 and some time after dark. Some examples: Jenny ordered a book which was to be available in the Afternoon. Our contract required that we were to drop Big Yellow off by 12:30 or pay more money. Jenny called the rental company in town to ask how sticky they’d be on the exact time of return. They said that we can return it any time in the “Afternoon”. Amazing.
- Today we went to “The Pie Hut” in town. It’s a little coffee shop that serves 100% natural pies made there. We were about to leave because there were no tables when the watress brought to our attention a nice old couple who invited us to share their table with them. They were wonderful folks who became friends over lunch and about a 1 and half hour conversation about the area.