When I Say It's a Small Town...

According to the interwebz, the town I now live in has a population of just under 3,700 people.

If you're like me, that number alone doesn't really mean much to you.  By comparison, the town I moved from, which I thought was a small town, has a population of a little more than 47,000.  That sounds like a lot of people, but living there, it felt like a small town to me.  Of course, I moved there from Cincinnati, which has a population of more than 296,000.  Anyway, by comparison, 3,700 people sounds small, doesn't it?

But here's what it means, practically speaking.

There are six places to eat in town: McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Dominoes (which is carry out and delivery only), Subway, a little diner, and a Chinese restaurant.  Oh, and there is the gas station/deli, called Pump and Deli.  So seven places to eat, if you count that.

There is one grocery store, a fairly small Kroger.  There is no Walmart.  There is a theater that shows one movie.  There is a small hardware store, but no Lowe's, no Home Depot, and no Menard's.  There are more churches than restaurants.  The city municipal building is about the size of a small home.  I live in the county seat and the county general hospital is nearby.  I'm pretty sure my high school was larger than this hospital, and I  went to a pretty small high school; I've seen nursing homes bigger than this hospital.

I bet there are more chicken than people in this town.  Probably more cows, too.  You can buy fresh eggs all over the place.  Drive down any country road and you'll see a number of signs at the end of long gravel driveways, saying something like "Free Range Brown Eggs for Sale."  You just knock on the door and ask for a dozen.  But not on Sundays.  A lot of people around here won't sell anything on Sundays.

This is what I mean when I say it's a small town.