One of the things about living in a small community is that everyone knows what everyone else is doing and what they are up to at any given time. There are always a few key people who have their thumb on the pulse of the community and are always the go-to person to get all the local gossip and chit-chat. But in general, small-town and rural community people know most of who is around and what’s going on. Mind you, there are ups and downs to this; you want to mind what you say behind people’s backs because, as the saying goes, bad gas travels fast in a small town.
The other part is that most of us know what everyone else does for a living. Since I do, well, this, I’ve become kind of a local oracle for political questions, and it’s not unusual to bump into someone at the post office or the gas station and have them ask, “Hey, Ward, what do you think of this here?” Granted, since our…
