I would imagine that if you had a good childhood (as I did), you would want to have your children’s childhoods be as similar to yours as possible.
My husband grew up in Levittown, PA, which is about thirty minutes outside of Philadelphia. I grew up in Hacienda Heights, CA which is about thirty minutes outside of Los Angeles. I’m not too sure we could find a similar environment to what we experienced if we lived thirty minutes outside of a major US city today. But here in West Richland, we’ve found it.
I left the office early today and took my daughter to a showing of Charlotte’s Web at the library. As we were on our way I remembered that I used to go to movies at my library when I was a little girl. Now, keep in mind, movies were still a big deal in the 70’s because there were no VCR’s or DVD players, or laptops to watch things on. And yes, it’s kind of quaint to think of a movie being shown on a TV in the city council’s chambers when I could have ordered it on my own from Netflix. But there were other parents and kids there, so clearly that kind of thing still holds some appeal.
There is a block party in my neighborhood next weekend. We never had those kind of get-togethers when I was a kid, but it would have been fun if we had. Come to think of it, we did periodically unite (in fear) when police helicopters flew low over the area with the searchlights blazing and the megaphones declaring, “Please remain inside your homes. There is an escaped convict presumed to be in your area. Do not try to capture him yourself. We repeat…” (I told you I live just outside of LA!)
But I digress…my point is that the good parts about a smaller community are here in West Richland. I do NOT gossip over my back fence with my neighbor, but I absolutely have borrowed a cup of sugar on more than one occasion.
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