I was listening to Wilco on my iPod while sipping Sumatra blend coffee and reading a Danish murder mystery this morning while occupying a window seat at a local coffee shop.
Not a bad first sentence to set the scene, eh?
Grand Haven's downtown is comprised of all small businesses, save a few big-name national banks, and Jumpin' Java has been located there for fourteen years (and directly on the waterfront for a few years before that). My friends and I spent most of our time there in my late teens and early twenties and I still enjoy visiting occasionally. The owner has resisted selling out to Starbucks (we have three in town, certainly no need for more!) and has kept the place more-or-less the same after nearly two decades of ownership. It's comfortable and familiar.
Across the street is a shoe store and in between chapters of my book, I noticed a woman in her mid-fifties or so (maybe older, maybe younger - it's hard to tell these days when 60 has become the new 40, or so the sixty-year-olds say). Anyway, she was older and presumably an employee of the shoe store, and was sweeping the cobwebs away from the entry to the store, as well as the sidewalk out front. I was stricken by her attention to detail and though I have no need of an overpriced pair of sandals, if I did, I'd go there because of the employee's attention to detail.
As I neared the local Public Safety building walking home, I saw the lights of a police cruiser suddently go on. My first thought was, "Well, that can't be good," but once I got closer, I saw one of our hometown cops giving a tour of the vehicle to a family with two young children who appeared to have been walking by and gotten the officer's attention. No emergency, no problem - just positive community policing.
As of July, 2016 there were just over 11,000 residents of the City of Grand Haven. This number fluctuates by a thousand or so every few years and inflates during the summer; being a small town on the coast of Lake Michigan makes it a desirable get-away for City Folk. We are Coast Guard City U.S.A., as proclaimed officially by President Clinton in the 90s, and have a few other big local / regional events throughout the year.
My Dad emigrated in the late 70s from the distant, snow-covered tundra of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada (the east end of Toronto). He's lived here thirty-seven years but still considers himself a big city kinda guy; I can appreciate big cities. I've been to Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, Edinburgh, London (Ontario and England), and Washington D.C. Michigan's second-largest city, Grand Rapids, is about forty minutes from my house. The blending of cultures, the restaurants, shops, events, museums, and other life options far outweigh small town life (we do, however, have both a Meijer and Wal-Mart, as well as the accursed trio of Starbucks).
To me, though, what big cities lack is attention to minutiae. I could be totally off, never having spent more than a few days in a big city. But smaller towns offer a chance to appreciate the smaller, noticeable details that make up daily existence - at least on a manageable level. The cop showing lights to the kids, the woman sweeping the shop door, the fact I can walk seven blocks from my house to downtown without fear of someone bumping in to me or harassing me, is a positive attribute to living in a small town. I appreciate this kind of thing.
I have nothing against big cities or those who thrive on living there and the excitement they offer... it's just not for me.
