City Girl

My parents are both from small towns in Iowa, my mom is from a REALLY small town in Iowa called Gilmore City. I think the population is like 500 counting the livestock. This weekend Gilmore City turned 125 so my whole family trekked over there to watch the "parade" (I use the term loosely) and hang out together. I forgot about the dog so Jeff got a boys weekend to see the new Batman movie and mow the grass. Emelia and I set out to reclaim our heritage. I have never enjoyed Gilmore City so much.

You see when I was a kid we went to Gilmore most summers for vacation. I never went to Disneyworld, I went to Iowa. I pretty much hated it after the age of eight. Everyone that lived there was slow, cars moved slow, life moved slow - I was all about moving fast. When I was a rebellious, super-cool teenager I remember feeling like a fish out of water and loving it. I delighted in shocking my family. The crazier my hair, the better. You hate my clothes, great! One Christmas we went home and I was reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X and wearing cowboy boots and my grandma about crapped. I was thrilled.

Here I am 15 years later and I have a new appreciation for small town life. It does move slowly and there is nothing wrong with that. People know their neighbors, in a real way, not in a pleasant conversation at the community mail box sort of way. That was very evident to me this weekend. After the parade, the Lions club served lunch for a free will offering. I bet I saw every person put in a $20 and these aren't rich folks but they believe in the Lion's club and they are thankful for a home cooked lunch. Lunch included a slice of homemade pie and a scoop of homemade ice cream. The women of Gilmore City must have baked 100 pies. No one knew me because my mom is gone and my grandparents are too so there was no way to connect me to Gilmore but when my aunt said I was Carolyn's daughter they instantly knew me. I loved being known only through my mom. She would have loved that Emelia and I went and ate blueberry pie on the lawn of the church where she was baptized, confirmed and married. I felt like for just a day everything was right and I had been so wrong.

My cousin brought a bag to collect candy thrown from the floats, Emelia loved it! The church had a little kiddie carnival, this is Emelia's version of the ring toss. At one point I looked up and she had stolen the ring. Great, my kid is stealing from the church carnival!