Small Town Values

I enjoy the comedy of John Stewart on the Daily Show, and was quite amused on Friday by his piece on small town values. (Follow this link if you want to see it.) Ignoring the political focus of the segment, I imagined myself trying to answer the question, “What, exactly, are small town values?” It’s a challenging exercise.

Uniquely Small Town Values?

The only value I can think of that may be uniquely small town is that of preferring to live in a small town. After that, it seems you can find any “small town value” in every community… and you can find just about any “value” imaginable in a small town.

Lewisburg, for example, has people who value education, who value religion, who value family, who value friends, who value health, who value stuff, who value freedom, who value their careers, who value community, who value sports, and who value TV shows. There are folks here who value their own interpretations of right and good to the degree that they expect everyone to share those interpretations. Other folks value diversity so much that they won’t express a position on either side of an issue. In short, there is absolutely nothing that makes “small town values” any different from what nearly every American would refer to as “values.”

If you want to politicize the notion of small town values, consider that there are Christian-raised, small-town, family-loving folk who are drug addicts, pregnant but not married, divorced, kleptomaniacs, rude, war-mongering, hateful, and all kinds of less-than-perfect. You can find a whole bunch of similar folks living in cities. I believe that neither small-town- nor urban-America would claim these as their values.

And Your Values?

While I haven’t been able to pin down what makes values “small town,” I have noticed a significant difference in how people relate to their values. My acquaintances in the city were never shy to reveal their points of view… but they also rarely injected moral, religious, or political commentary into a conversation. In small town USA—at least in the small town USA I know—for many people, religiousness is almost a calling card; sometime during a first meeting, it’s common to be asked what church you attend.

So, based on my experiences, I can add a second value to my short list of small town values: making sure other folks know what you value.

Across the US, our core values as basically the same. We differ in interpretation, in expression, in policy, and in behavior… but ask us what we value, and the answers will be boringly consistent. No group, organization, region, city, or town has a lock on values… Go ahead: ask anyone.

For the complete City Slipper experience, visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Also, please visit my blogs about growing your own vegetables and fruit: Your Small Kitchen Garden and Your Home Kitchen Garden

Celebrating The End Of June

Lewisburg has one of the most amazing end-of-June celebrations you could imagine. Here’s the plan for this year: Wednesday, Sousa in the park. Thursday, Yankee Doodle Dandy at the local movie theatre. Friday, a big band concert on the lawn followed by fireworks. Saturday, a parade followed by concerts on the lawn and picnicking under the trees.

If it sounds suspiciously like a 4th of July celebration, that’s because it’s not really an end-of-June celebration; it just happens to fall at the end of June. Lewisburg celebrates Independence Day a week early—and there’s good thinking behind it:

As a small town, Lewisburg isn’t a big draw for groups that might march in a parade here. Local High School bands tend to march in their hometown parades—and most of those are on the Saturday closest to July 4th. Bands travelling from Philadelphia or farther can find larger audiences on that holiday weekend than they’ll find in Lewisburg, so they aren’t available for the Lewisburg parade.

Move the parade a week before the holiday weekend, and you find a lot of open calendars. Several local high school bands participate, and a respectable assortment of bands comes from afar. In fact, the “week early” strategy has let the Lewisburg 4th of July parade to grow into one of the longest and most robust parades in the area.

With the parade a weekend early, it’s appropriate to hold the rest of the Independence Day celebration early as well. So, the music in the park program on Wednesday featured patriotic tunes as Sousa would have directed them. On Thursday, for a one dollar admission fee, residents could attend a screening of Yankee Doodle Dandy at The Campus Theatre—an art deco building that’s on the National Register of Historic Landmarks.

The fireworks show held yesterday was sponsored by the Allbright Care Center at Riverwoods. For 25 minutes they launched aerials above a soccer field that’s nearly surrounded by tall trees. Through one wall of trees, there are baseball fields where spectators started arriving more than three hours before the launch. A big band style dance band played until dark, and people took up positions with lawn chairs and blankets. It was a generous show—as it is every year.

The parade and picnic are a fine exclamation point for the celebration. (Immediately after the parade, patrons and participants gather on a lawn at Bucknell University where bands play and several vendors sell hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, and other foods.)

We had packed a cooler and grabbed it from the car on our way from the parade route to the University. There, we met up with several friends and had a pleasant lunch in the shade. It was a fine end-of-June celebration.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.

Music In The Park

Starting in June of each year, Lewisburg sponsors music in the park. This is one of the great entertainment bargains available anywhere: there’s no charge to attend, and you can take along your own seating and snacks. The park in question is Hufnagel. The music varies.

Hufnagel Park sits in the western third of the downtown business district. It is a narrow block, but quite deep with a creek along one side, and a railroad track along the other. Near Market Street (the main street), there are ornamental plantings and stairs leading down from the sidewalk. A level lawn stretches toward the back of the park where a gazebo sits at the bottom of a modest brick and concrete amphitheatre.

Music in the park happens each Wednesday evening at 7:00. Over the years, we’ve heard performances by the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, the Lewisburg High School Marching Band, the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, the Penn Central Wind Band, and more. We’ve heard big band music, classical, jazz, pop(s), and folk.

The performances are usually entertaining, if not, then at least technically very good or better. Some draw bigger crowds than others, but they always draw more people than could watch comfortably from the amphitheatre seating. So, the performers usually set up facing the level lawn, (rather than the amphitheatre), and patrons bring chairs and blankets with which they make haphazard patterns across the park.

Perhaps the most popular show each year is Stars, Stripes, and Souza performed by the Penn Central Wind Band. The band plays music that John Sousa’s band would have played—some of his original works, and some written by his contemporaries. I counted about 700 people in the audience this year which seems like a small number until you realize that’s nearly a tenth the population of Lewisburg.

It’s not surprising to find so many Sousa fans in Lewisburg. Many will return for upcoming performances by a brass band, a big band, a symphony band, a trumpet duo, traditional Celtic music, a jazz duo, and the Lewisburg High School marching band—all on the remaining schedule. If you live in Lewisburg, you’re bound to see people you know at these concerts. If you don’t live here, you’re still likely to feel welcome.

For the complete City Slipper experience, please visit my web site at http://www.cityslipper.com/.