Living in a Small Town - Part 1

We live in a small rural town with a population of 3,300 give or take a few. When we moved here from Brandon, Manitoba we were told by friends in Brandon that we would enjoy living in a small town because the people are so friendly. In fact, Ridgetown is called the "Friendliest Town in Ontario". Never having lived in such a small place before, I had my doubts. Now we have lived in Ridgetown for 33 years and almost every day I am reminded of what we were told so long ago.

There is a saying that goes something like this - one advantage of living in a small town is that if you don't know what you are doing, someone else does. That became very apparent to us when my dad moved here a year ago. He immediately got involved with Rotary International in which he had been very active in Pennsylvania and in Georgia before that. He also started going to church in town. It didn't take long till people were approaching me in the grocery store or even on the street and talking to me about what an amazing man he is (they're right!). These are people that I wouldn't have expected to know who I am. I have never been very active in things in Ridgetown because our children went to school in Chatham (22 miles/35 km from here), we go to church in Chatham and I taught in Chatham. Arend, on the other hand, is well-known in Ridgetown since he grew up here and has worked at the College here for thirty-three years (and counting).

Now we are in the process of having our 120-year-old home painted. I am amazed at the number of people who know that we are having it painted and know who is doing it. Because we live on the main street of town, many people drive or walk past our home every day and they seem to be closely following the progress. Hopefully the painter will get some more jobs out of this one; it seems that every time he comes down off of the scaffolding, someone walking past the house stops to talk to him. He is doing a fantastic job and we are very happy with him. He's even taking the storm windows off, cleaning them and painting the part between the interior and exterior windows! Wow!

Till next time,
Willa Dale

Before

















With primer coat