Small Town Life
I grew up in the small town of Bippus, Indiana, population of about 400. It had a restaurant, 2 gas stations, a grocery store, a furniture store, a feed mill, 2 churches, a post office and lots of wonderful people.
I have so many fond memories there and am thankful that’s where my roots are. Today the town is not what it use to be, as it is for most of small town America. We ran around town playing with our friends, riding our bikes around the mile square, and stopping at Pony Creek to eat our packed lunches. We thought we were quite the adventurers.
My friends from there are life long friends that I cherish to this day. My grandma lived close to us and helped my mom, who was a single working mother of 4 children. I have memories of climbing the big tree at the neighbors house and laying in the sun at my cousins. We had sleep outs in the back yard where we hung big quilts over the clothes line and held them down with bricks. We would sneak out and walk around our sleepy little town in the middle of the night. We weren’t looking for mischief, but we thought we were certainly daring young kids.
I remember eating rhubarb out of the patch with a cup of sugar to dip it in. Boy oh boy was it sour. I remember pulling weeds in the garden and hating every minute of it.But the thing I remember most were the good people of that town. Everyone knew you by name.
Halloween was so much fun. We started Trick or Treating the week before and would go multiple nights. There was no such thing as a store bought costume. We rummaged through whatever we had and came up with our own outfits. We had one elderly couple, at least they seemed elderly to me at the time, who gave us a choice of 2 candy bars, not the fun size, they hadn’t even been thought of yet, but 2 full sized candy bars
During the holidays our church youth group would go Christmas caroling. I loved that. It was always nice to see the smiles on all the faces as you sang at their home.
Life was simpler then and as I get older those memories and times are dear to my heart. I know you can’t go back, but I’m thankful that I can always REMEMBER.
