“While we’re down here, we may as well measure that section, eh?”  I deadpanned.  Sal looked at me in horror……..then she broke up.  We lay there for a second laughing.  In the context, it was a good joke.

Timing and set-up is the key.

I had just slipped and fallen through the deck joists, interrupting my rapid decent for a nano second by smashing my face and hip on the lethal structure before straining my hefty bulk violently through the 14 and one half inch spacing.  24 inch centres would have, perhaps, been a better design choice.  Hard to say.

I slumped through to the rocks and mud about four feet further down and could feel the blood running down my face and the pain from what felt like a broken hip.  I didn’t think I’d be getting up anytime soon.

And Sal wasn’t going to be able to lift me. So we lay there together and cracked a few jokes.

Eventually the shock abated and, after a quick self-assessment, I managed with Sal’s assistance to get out, climb the slope and get to the house.  Awhile later I was in bed and Sal attended to my wounds.  I’d have a helluva bruise and a black eye but nothing was broken.  Turns out to be nothing more than my usual new-project blood sacrifice.

Aside: our building site would pose quite a challenge for CSI.

I am fine but, two days later, the swelling and crap has virtually frozen my right hip so I will remain bedridden for awhile except for the painful but short ambulations necessary to promote healing.  Should be back in a few days.  ‘Course by then, Sal will have left me.

Sal is not cut out for nursing. Too hard. Too  mean.  She doesn’t like it.  Neither do her patients.  She’d be better suited as a prison guard at Guantanamo.  Interrogation division.  And, I confess, I am bit of a baby.  But I am a better nurse.  Hell,  Hannibal Lechter would be better nurse!!

I soak and gently peel off bandages. Sal just says, “Oh, it’s faster and easier to just rip ’em off!”  And then she proceeds to do just that!  The trouble is, she is ripping off my bandages!

“There!  See!  All done!  Now was that so hard?”

” NOT FOR YOU!”

Sally is a lovely person and I love her dearly.  But she does tend to regard pain as an indulgence in the weak, one she has little time or patience for.  Getting hurt in an accident around here is only part of the ordeal.  After the accident comes the nursing!  She is the single greatest reason for me being a fast healer.  Convalescence is hell!

Oh, I am only kidding.  Mostly.

(I still can’t move and she does read the blog, ya know?)

Stunningly beautiful day.  Sunny, clear, just a little nip in the air.  My kind of day.  I love it!  It is especially appreciated after a night of screamin’ hell!

Well, it wasn’t hell.  Not really.  It just blew like it.  OMYGAWD!  It blew so much that the goofy little wind turbine that we erected jammed a whole lotta extra juice into the batteries for the very first time!  For our batteries to ‘open’ the day at 50.4 volts is, like, amazing.  Typically, a really good a day is 49.6.  We were both grinning from ear to ear.

“Unh, Dave.  Maybe you and Sal should get out more?  Get some kind of life, maybe?  Sheesh……..watching your battery levels?  That’s kinda sad, man!”

I confess that watching battery levels is an acquired taste in satisfaction.  You really have to ‘be here’ to fully appreciate it.  So, I won’t dwell on it except to say that everyone reading this blog who lives off the grid is saying, “OHMYGAWD!  The guy woke up to 50.4!  It really doesn’t get any better than that!”

We think differently out here.

Sal and I still think the fire in the stove is fantastic!  We still marvel at hot water in the shower.  We think we are wealthy beyond our status to eat well, drink well and have a beautiful view from just about every window.  And Sal adds some extra points for having two dogs (I subtract those points, myself).  We have a lot to be thankful for and we are.  Truly.  But, Geez, man!  50.4 volts!! 

To a lesser extent but on the same kind of metric, we see wealth in the oyster beds, the free-flowing and more-than-adequate water.  We rejoiceth in prawns, our buckets sometimes running over.  Same for clams and the odd fish we snag.  We fully appreciate free floating logs.  We could say the same for berries but we never seem to get around to picking them.  But we will.  Same for apples (lots of old orchards on the island).  If we could, we might be able to say the same for venison.  But we can’t.  Not yet.  Maybe in the future.  Sometime.  Possibly.

The thing about living off the grid is that you come to appreciate life in a whole different way.  It may sound a bit cliché and it is, but consumer/material things just don’t do it for us anymore except when they make life safer, easier or more convenient.  We appreciate our car, for instance.  And the internet.  And our boat motors.  But non-important stuff, ‘disposable-income’ stuff, (fashion, restaurants, e-gizmos, Starbucks, etc) just has no appeal anymore.  None.  We have lost the hunger for a new cell-phone!

It is probably just an age thing – not an off-the-grid thing.  I dunno.  I am just noting the changes, really.  I mean, our car is a 1996 and it seems just fine to me.  I don’t lust for a new one.  What has happened to me!?  It’s gotta be age, eh?

Last night a boat was blasting up channel at a pretty good clip.  The night was black as pitch.  The wind was picking up.  He traveled with lights ablazing.  Looked and acted like a commercial water taxi but it was the wrong time of the year and definitely the wrong time of the night.  So, I watched.

At first I used my binoculars but then shifted to my night vision monocular.  Even with that, I could barely make him out.  It was very, very dark.

There is a lot of flotsam and logs in the water in the winter.  Tons, actually.  One cannot go more than a hundred yards without seeing something large half submerged.  Reduced speed is essential.  At night, crawling is the proscribed way to go even if you have headlights as this boat did.  He zoomed.

About a quarter mile away the boat came to an abrupt halt.  All the lights went out.  Then I saw a small flashlight wandering around what I assumed was the engine area.  But it went dim pretty fast.  So, I continued to watch mostly nothing – just a blur, actually.

Boats hit stuff all the time out here.  It is very common.  Typically, the bit they hit gets caught in the prop or between the engine and the transom and the operator is obliged to stop and clear it.  Sometimes the impact is hard enough to ‘kick’ the outboard leg up and so time is taken to reset everything and check it.

Typically an impact that hard also requires the operator to change underclothes and just sit for awhile until the blood pressure and heart rate settle down.  If the engine survived the impact there is a brief conversion to Christianity and a few ‘thank yous’.  A spiritual moment is a spiritual moment.

Just as often the impact makes even more of an impression and the leg is no longer functional.  Sal once hit a heavy deadhead at a relatively slow speed and ripped the leg right off the head of her engine.  It is an occupational hazard out here made less by slower speeds but never eliminated.

Our guy was clearly ‘dead in the water’.

When such an event occurs, it is obligatory on the nearest assistance to render it.  No one needs to be left to the sea in the winter in the night.  I was contemplating my choice of layering (clothing under wet gear) when I saw the boat start to move again.  This time considerably slower.  This time without any headlights.  Our hapless boater had presumably used the kicker he had like the one most carry to get mobile again.  The kicker is the term given to a small auxiliary motor that used to be used primarily for trolling but is now often carried as an emergency back-up.  And this, he had presumably deemed, was just such an emergency.  Good decision.

I watched as he slowly made his way North.  After a few minutes he was gone, disappeared into the deep blackness of night.  All I could hear was the wind beginning to howl, the rain picking up and the increasing slap of waves on the beach.

If he was moving – even at that slow pace – he would be at the community dock before I could get dressed and out there.  So I was relieved of duty.  And I was just as relieved not to have to go out.

But, in the eight years we have been here, I have only had to respond maybe four or five times.  It’s not onerous.  Sometimes it is inconvenient and, in this case, it may have been uncomfortably wet and cold but it is something everyone out here is prepared to do.  We are each other’s back-up.  We are plan C.

Plan A is to go swiftly about your appointed rounds with your boat humming along nicely.  Plan B is to complete your tasks on auxiliary power (as he had done).  Plan C is to wave your arms, send out a message on the local VHF channel and/or hope for a neighbour to pass by.  Plan D is to phone the Coast Guard.  And, in really bad weather with your VHF radio not working, Plan E is to contemplate your likely placement in the afterlife.

Sadly, a few guys run through all their plans every year.  It can be dangerous out here.

It was 9:00 in the morning.

While I was sitting there sipping tea in my usual aprés-sleep sleep, I heard the deep rumble of big engines and I instantly knew that sound.  The barge is coming in!  Time for diesel, gasoline and propane.  Time to chew some fat with the captain and his son.  Crack some jokes.  Be guys!

And so down to the beach I go.  Capt. T and his crew deliver the goods, not a drop spilled.  Not a move wasted.  We talk, we laugh, they work and they are gone in twenty minutes, maybe less.  I’ve taken longer at a self serve gas station.  They are very good at what they do and they make it all seem effortless.

“Gotta get going!  Wanna get around the southern parts before the weather kicks up again.  Top o’ the season to ya!  See ya next year!”

And they were gone.

“Waddya wanna do?”

“He’s right.  The weather is good.  Seas are calm.  Maybe we should go up and get some of that lumber for the deck that L has cut for us?”

And so we were gone, too.  Up to the community dock, picked up the lumber and headed home all easy-peasy like.  When we got home, I slung the 2×6’s up the hill and we got to working on the deck some more.  Did enough to feel like it was a good day and then we went in.

Sal is – right now – in the kitchen making Pad Thai Noodles with prawns.  The prawns came from L (our lumber guy) and they were fresh delivered.  I will go pour her a glass of wine when it is 5:00.  Then I’ll feed the dogs.

December 2, 2012.  And all is right with my world.  19 days to go til the end of the world according to the Mayans.  I hope they are wrong.  It really doesn’t get any better than this.

Blog’s been down a couple of days.  I can legitimately blame the weather.

When the cloud cover is as thick as it has been, the satellite signal can’t get through (and the cell is extremely weak as well) and we are then left basically incommunicado.  But, to be honest, I don’t think it was the weather – not directly anyway.  I was just wondering about what to write.

You see, when winter sets in, activities diminish.  Fewer activities means fewer stories.  I don’t hurt myself as much for one thing.  Don’t build much.  Don’t fix much.  Less boating.  Don’t ‘mess’ with logs and wood as much.  And some of the activities we do are strictly indoor exercises. Thus the blog on cooking.

But, honestly, that one stretched the off-the-grid theme somewhat.  I know that. 

I am happy to stay indoors half the time.  I like to write.  I like to surf the net.  I like to read.  And I have a few minor chores that can be done indoors as well.  But Sal needs to be outside 80% of the time.

So, to some extent, we both struggle to stay outside as much as possible – she more than me – but that is easier, of course, when it is pleasant.  November, December, January and February are rarely pleasant and so, Sal, for one, is often outdoors in inclement weather.  It takes a real storm to drive her indoors.  She’s got a serious ‘outdoors’ streak in her.

I suspect her disdain for housework is somewhat related.  But I can’t say that. 

We are not alone.  As I’ve written before, the bulk of the community go into a winter mode.  Winter mode for most is just staying indoors.  H actually claims to hibernate, kinda.  He definitely sleeps more.  He stays in a lot.  He fattens up.

Many others do more socializing.  They go to town more.  Visit relatives.  Shop.

Others fly south.  Literally.  They go like the geese.  Our local yoga guru and his partner leave for points warm every year around now – the end of November, beginning of December.  And most of us will leave every other year at the very least.

The thing I find most interesting about that is that the median income out here is somewhere around $12k a year per person.  And yet, I would estimate that almost 10% of the population leaves for sunnier climes for at least a month each winter.

One fellow I know lives on much less than 12K and he goes south every year, as well.  Minimum: one month.  His thinking goes something like this: “I am poor, anyway.  May as well be poor in Mexico.  Mexicans are poor there and they do OK.  My only real financial challenge is to get there.” 

But he has been to Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and most of southern Europe. This year he plans on going to Florida.  Seems money is no object and neither is no money.  Off he goes!

But – get this! – more than just a few neighbours leave every winter to go do ‘good work’ overseas!  These people, themselves, are pretty bloody poor by any N. American standard but they go to India, Africa and even Tibet to help out in orphanages, hospitals and clinics. One self-described but unaffiliated Christian couple save what meagre monies they can every year and then go to the poorest of African countries to help out.  Another woman gathers materials, medicines, goods and money all year and goes to an orphanage in India she practically sustains by herself.

You wouldn’t expect that….would you?  I didn’t.  I have no idea if this ‘syndrome’ is just a subset of Snowbirding or if it is a unique form of charity.  It is not, I have learned, peculiar to just our neighbourhood.  We have some friends up in the north who do the same kind of ‘seasonal charity’ thing.  Poor Canadians being poor but contributing to others in warmer countries in the winter. Who woulda thunk it?

Winterizing, off-the-grid-style.

Sal does the paperwork for one of our local neighbours.  He can read and write, of course.  In fact, the fellow is exceptionally intelligent and extremely well-read.   But he has lived the vast majority of the last 40 years living mostly alone and usually ‘farther out’ than even us.  He is as close to a mountain man as one can be living on the coast not going into the mountains.   Grizzly Adams Goes Sailing.  

He is not a hermit but has been one at times and would have no problem with it all.  He is very comfortable being alone.  In fact, he is a bit like a hermit within this small community.

His socialization skills are more-than-adequate (he’s a great guy and very funny) but they do not extend to the specialty subset of bureaucrat-speak.  He does not fare well when dealing with government in any of it’s forms.  He just doesn’t seem to ‘get it’ when they are speaking to him.  It’s like a deaf-spot.  And they can’t mail anything to him – he has no address.  He is a blind spot, too.  He even has trouble interacting with BC Ferries (something I can relate to).  So, Sal does the paperwork chores for him.

The thing is, we wouldn’t think that anyone would need to do much ‘paperwork’ or government interaction out here.  And they don’t.  But they do have to do some.  Once in awhile.  Even if it is just because they may end up in the hospital now and again.

And, as their years and the role of government continues to grow, more and more of these ‘invisible’ people are being overlooked or, well, marginalized in some kind of way unless they have a ‘person’ who can speak for them.

That is kinda crazy in itself.

One of the guys out here hadn’t done his income taxes for thirty years.  T’wasn’t a problem, really.  He hadn’t made anything.  He literally worked his whole life just for food.  A neighbour did his taxes for him so that, now, at almost 70, he could get Old age security.  How he survived without virtually any regular income whatsoever was a complete mystery.  And he never went to the doctor.  I think that part might change.  He is now 70, after all.

The point?  Well, one tends to think that we are all numbered and tracked.  We tend to think we are all monitored in some sort of way.  Counted and categorized at the very least.  But it is not true.  Some people are missed.  Some people go missing.  And some people actually ‘hide out’.  There are more than just a few people who are ‘off the radar’.  And some of them are out in the woods.

Of course, we all know of the urban ‘homeless’.  We know of the poor ‘crazies’ who were ‘set free’ from the asylums so that they could live on the streets.  We know of the ill and illegal who also share those same shadows.  But there are also some pretty healthy, capable, uber-independent sorts who opted out so long ago and maintained their estrangement that, for all intents and purposes they, too, are no longer ‘in the system’.  They are ‘out’ and not likely to ever get back ‘in’.  They have dropped off the face of the earth.

They may be the new noble savage.

My guess is that we have four or five such ‘invisible’ people out here.  All really old guys living way beyond the margins of what are already considered the margins  – almost like hermits.  All of them (well, maybe one) are sane, pleasant and have significant capabilities.  What they don’t have is a fixed address, a conventional lifestyle or a partner.  They don’t have money.  They don’t have stuff.  They sure as hell don’t have much of a wardrobe.  In fact, they don’t have much of anything except acceptance.

We ‘accept them’ and they are part of us.

Frankly, I see them as kind of noble in an independent, do-no-harm, natural-living kind of way.

I like to think that I am getting better at this off-the-grid-living thing.  You know, fixing outboards, keeping gensets going, living off the land – that kind of thing?  I mean – we all expect that more experience adds up to a deeper pool of strength or something, right?  I am not so sure.

The other day, I must have ‘brushed’ the vent closed on the fuel tank to the genset.  But didn’t notice.  And then I started the engine.  It ran and then stopped after awhile.  I tried again.  Same result.  First thought:  “OH GOD!!  Engine doesn’t work!  Oh God!  Panic stations!”

But then, my deeper-but-still-not-extensive level of experience showed up.  Calm settled in and the second thought was: “OH GOD! Engine doesn’t work!  It will never work again!  Just don’t panic in front of Sal!”

Not such a big improvement, actually.

And so I progressed through more such thoughts until I had gone from fragile and forced calm to ‘slightly ticked’ and inconvenienced.  The thought then changed to: “Oh well.  It’s too cold to work, anyway.  I’ll go have tea.  Maybe take it in to town for an expert to look at.  Or maybe try to fix it tomorrow.  Stay calm, Dave.  Breathe.”

And so it went.  But, after a while, I was calm enough to go back out and get into the carbs, drain them, check the spark, take off a few pieces, clean some filters and do a few things and fiddle about.  All in the dark, of course.  And it was getting colder. Poor me.  

Still, I remained calm as I diligently addressed the problem, talking myself through procedures and generally being way more mature on the outside than I was feeling on the inside.  As you can glean from all that, it didn’t come easily.  It didn’t come naturally.  But I got there.  I looked like off-the-grid-guy, anyway.

Took an hour or so.

I had stripped it all down, cleaned it all up and checked it all out.  It was time to try to start it.  Just as I was about to do that, I noticed the vent to the fuel tank was closed.  I opened it.

It started.

Ran like a charm.

I like to think that it just needed a quick ‘once over’ and that, after the initial panic, I had done all the right things like the off-the-grid-guy, I was trying to be.

The truth: I inadvertently shut my own engine off and it took way too long and way too much anxiety to figure that out.

Pathetic, thy name is Urbanguy Goneferal.  He’s still an infant-student in a different world.

Going off the grid is an adventure.  And good adventurers are good team-mates.  Sal and I are a good team and, as a consequence, we have had good adventures.  It may be just that simple.  Or quite magical.  I dunno………….

Many people live their lives from a secure and happy perspective.  They have what they want and they are who they want to be and, for the most part, their glass is half-full.  I tend to see the world from the opposite view.  I always want something different, I need to change the world around me and I always think I should be better than I am.  For me, the glass is always half-empty.

Fortunately for me, Sally is one of the happy former and, together, our differences tend to balance out.  She makes me happy.  I make her crazy.  It’s a kinda balance, anyway.

And I am only partly joking.  Sally is happy – for the most part – at whatever she is doing.  She lives mostly in the moment and finds what is good in it to find.  She is the embodiment of the old rock and roll song, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with, love the one you’re with.” She can make any place nice and fun.  She brings the light.

I am dark.  Discontent.  I want change.  The moment bugs me.  I wanna mess with the status quo.  “Let’s get the hell out of here!”  I am buzz-kill.

But, because of her ‘lightness’, she is OK with that.  Mostly.  She often says, “Well, all things considered, I have to admit that you bring interest and surprise and humour and growth and more surprise to my life.  Perhaps a bit more than I ever wanted but, all in all, I am happier for the experiences.  Honest.  But, can we stop now?”

Sometimes that movement, that unrest, is non-negotiable.  Sometimes danger threatens.  Sometimes things are getting ugly.  Or boring, anyway.  Sometimes the glass truly is in danger of going empty.  It is then we malcontents come into our own.  That is the neighbourhood I tend to be more familiar with.  She brings the light, I bring the night-vision.

So, we tend to equilibrium by way of each other rather than by way of the situation we are in.

Face it – situations change.  Life can throw you a cake or a curve-ball.  It is really all in how you handle it and we have discovered that, acting as a team, we can keep some balance and moderation in our lives.  Call it rock-hard stale cake, if you want but that’s the way we see it!  She is the Force, I am the dark side.  Yin and yang.  Our glass may be half full, it may be half empty but, either way, we have at least half together.  And we are both happy with that.

See the irony in that last sentence?  I am happy with that!?  Maybe the glass truly is filled to the brim and my cup also runneth over?

Ever wonder where all the hippies went?  All the love-children?  All the back-to-the-landers?  I do.

Was it just a phase?  Was it a fad?  Do all generations simply create a way to get together and this was just one of those?  Like a series of Woodstocks?  Like attending college but not for the degree?  Like a need to join in, but probably mostly just for access to the gene pool?

Well, part of the answer to that question is that some of them found their gene puddle a long way from the city and stayed on the land they migrated to in the 70’s.  The hippies became homesteaders.  It wasn’t easy.  Not in the least.  But some persevered.  So, for them, it was not a fad but a way of life consciously chosen and worked at.  And it worked out for them.  Mostly.  

My guess is that, of 100 people out here today, at least twenty-five would have started with at least one foot in 70’s hippydom. Or a close facsimile thereof.  Maybe a few more.  (Sally and I, for example, immersed our toes enough at the time to buy the property we now have).  The balance of off-the-gridders are old fishermen and loggers, early retirees, later-in-life urban escapees, cottagers who commit more-time-than-summer and a few whack-jobs who simply couldn’t make it anywhere else due to a too-high concentration of so-called normal people.  I’d guess 10% of our community is made up of social outcasts of some sort or another.  Mostly benign, though.  And there is room for them.

The latest arrivals are – as you might expect – mostly baby-boomer retirees but we have also greeted a few young people following the same path as their hippy parents or grandparents.

Back to the old hippies: they are fascinating.  They have kept – to a large degree, anyway – their ideals, their beliefs, their politics.  And their libraries (Ken Kesey, Carlos Castanada, Rachel Carson).  They have also added much-needed and much-varied skills and they have created full and enriching lives complete with varied vocations and healthy families.

Of course, they had to make a few changes to the originally promoted idylic WholeEarth plan but it is still pretty earthy.  They call it Gaia now and it allows for engaging in the commercial world now and then, employing running water and soap, refrigerators (for some) and keeping to a single spouse.  Mostly.

The old hippies are clean, skilled, hard-working and occasionally able to buy new.  Still voting Green – but driving an SUV.  Still walking and talking off-the-grid but employing computers and cell phones when doing it.  And they still think globally and act locally.  They compost, there are still the essential organics, recycled items and funky decor but, all in all, it is an integrated lifestyle that proves healthy and fulfilling with much less of the stress, materialism and debt found in suburbia.

From my limited point of view, the lifestyle has proved largely successful. Especially when compared to the inner-city experiment with mass transit, crime, gangs, exorbitant expense, more and more rules and bleak condominiums.

But it ain’t all bliss even out here.  The hippy life did not, generally, provide much for old age.  Hippies did not contribute much, as a rule, to the pension schemes or RRSPs.  They did not, as a rule, make enough money to save any of it.  Hippydom was largely hardscrabble.

And now they are getting older.

And that won’t be easy, either.  As a generalization, most of them would be like fish out of water if they had to live in the city.  Small-box living does not work for people who have lived in the outdoors most of their lives.

Put another way: I don’t think they can go back.  They are not equipped financially or psychologically.  I can say this, I think, because I have come to much the same place myself.  I do not have the desire or the need but I do not think I have the option either.

Which is fine.  For me, it is like not having the option to join the war in Syria or live in Toronto (which is worse?).  But I am reminded of the old adage turned on it’s head: When God opens a door, he just might close another.

The gates to the city are closed.

Back in the 70’s there was a fork in the road,  Some chose the left one and went as far as they could with it.  They found a garden.  Others chose the right and found the party.  They drank the Kool-Aid and ate the caviar.  Some of the lucky ones (and I count myself amongst them) went down one road and then back-tracked and tried the other.  Maybe a few times.

They and I didn’t get very far down either path, that is for sure, but we did get some perspective.  I think.  And all in all, everything considered, weighing the two choices (but knowing somewhere that there is a better road altogether)……………well…….I think the left one seems to have a bit more going for it.

It is definitely the road less traveled.

Small towns have a way about them.  Hard to explain.  But one of the telltales is being ‘known’ or recognized by clerks and ticket takers.  People you wouldn’t expect would ‘know you’.  Certainly not in the city…….

We pulled into the BC Ferry lot last week.

“Two adults, please.”

“No dogs, today?”

I was stunned.  Here is a woman who works changing shifts and here we are traveling on the ferry but twice a month.  Admittedly, we have been doing that for awhile but she not only recognized us but looked for our two dogs.  Not one dog – which, in itself would have been more expected – but both.  And they only travel with us about three times a year!  She knew us.

When I pull into Save-On, I take plastic totes into the store, pile them and the cooler in a corner and then Sally does the rounds while I race off to do other chores.  Thousands of customers come in every day and we only go in once every two weeks. We do not seek out any one of the six or so cashiers but simply go for the shortest line.

“I know.  You want the cold stuff first right?  And you are likely trying to catch the next ferry, right?  Then it is off in a small boat after that?”

“Unh, yeah”.

“Yeah.  I know.  I have watched you pack.  You are kinda particular.  Guess that’s because of the load for the small boat, eh?”

“Unh, yeah.”

“So, how is it?  Living on the outer islands, like?”

“It is great.  Love it.  How’d you know?”

“Well, you and your wife been coming in for years.  Story gets around, ya know.  There are quite a few islanders who shop here.  We kinda know ém all.  Not names.  Totes and gumboots mostly.  I’m Tricia.”

“Nice to meet you, Tricia.  This is my wife, Sally.”

And so it goes.

We are both known at the sushi place and the Syrian restaurant and they are, of course, less frequented than Save On.  The guys at the marine supply shop know me and that is just plain weird – I hardly ever go in there.  The Rocky Mountain Fudge ladies know me, too.  “Come in for your wife, again?  Chocolate walnut?”   But I don’t like to encourage them very much.  I am convinced they think I am lying and buying fudge for myself.  But it seems pretty lame to argue my aversion to heavy sweets to store clerks when I regularly attend to their fudge shop.  They can think what they want.

The weird thing is I have a doctor in town and the staff are the same bunch year after year.  Every time I go in they quiz me like I am an Arab with a box cutter trying to get on a plane.  You’d think your doctor’s office would know you – but they don’t!

‘Course the main reason we are known at Lordco and machine shops and junkyards is our nearest neighbour out here has been a prominent resident of the town for several decades and we are familiar by association.  In effect, we have instant acquaintances by association.  So that explains a lot.

But not everything.  Small town people are generally a bit more curious about you and typically have the time to engage when going through a minor transaction.  Short, personal conversations ensue.  People connect.  I am not talking about being invited to the cashier’s wedding but I am saying that she will likely tell me about it when I am next in buying spark plugs.  That’s kinda neat.

Funny thing about a small town – it doesn’t feel as small when you are recognized and acknowledged by the inhabitants.  Feels bigger, somehow.