As you may know, and probably don’t care, we spent some time traveling the past 10 days or so.
It is our habit to avoid interstates when we can. My own personal belief is that it is better for our vehicle, our gas mileage and the small towns we pass through, even if we don’t stop and patronize the businesses there. Somewhere our passage will be noted and credited to the amount of traffic through the town. But as often as possible we do buy fuel and lunch and such in small towns.
We saw a lot of little towns across Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama. We were stunned by the quality of food we ate in those towns – even at a little roadside shed made into a restaurant. And we saw firsthand the struggle they are all facing, much like our own little burg.
So what is the difference between a town dying, just surviving or thriving? The dying towns are obvious. No one is trying to keep them alive. The population is aging, works elsewhere or has moved away. There are farms and some supporting businesses, but more often those businesses are shifting to population centers and shuttering their small shops in small places. The only thing growing there are the cemeteries.
Towns that are just surviving are holding on to whatever businesses and people made it a town to begin with back in the day. One revolves around a catfish factory. There are a lot of catfish farms in Mississippi. But that town is just holding its own. The factory is the same size as it ever was. The workers are probably generational. There is very little there to keep graduates from the high school in town and very few reasons to come back if they leave.
What about the thriving communities? They all seem to be beautiful, even the ones with torn up streets and utility work blocking roadways and parking lots. They have an air of being cared for. The downtowns are vibrant, full of tiny shops and bakeries, places to eat or buy a bottle of wine. The business establishments are as diverse as the population.
A few had community colleges and some were on big waterways and benefited from shipping on those waterways. But none had mega-factories. None had the crazy traffic of a big city. And there were younger people on the streets. The school yards were full of kids. In essence, no one was sitting on their laurels waiting for the next boom in a single industry. There was hustle and drive and energy. People had realized small town America can do business anywhere as long as there is an internet connection.
So where would a traveler through Watonga place it? Is it dying, just surviving or thriving? And no matter your answer, how do we as its citizens move it to another category or make its place in a category more solid?
We stop waiting on the next big boom and use our brains, energy and creativity to create our own industry. There’s no time like today.