I'm not exactly shy about saying how much I hate small town bullshit, and the people who engage in small town bullshit. Maybe I'm an elitist dick or something, but I think it's that I just don't like it when people are boastful about some little place they're from. Maybe it's because the suburbs were not kind to me when I was a teenager. Whatever.
Last weekend, a car full of kids, some of whom were hours away from graduation, apparently went too fast over a railroad crossing, when the car caught air, flipped and hit a tree. Four of the five kids died. I know that crossing well, and I remember doing it once, scared out of my mind, with one of my friends while in high school. I probably did it once with my dad, too, but he used to rally professionally. I suppose in any case, it's a pretty stupid stunt to do, and in this case, those kids unfortunately paid with their lives.
In a big urban school district, it would be on the news and people would forget about it, but the support of the small town in tragedies like this is inspiring. You can see it all over town, with blue and white ribbons and home made signs. They're in front of houses and in businesses. There's a real sense of unity for the moment, where people want to help out their neighbors.
Today we noticed it isn't just here, but our neighboring city to the north, the classic high school rivalry, appears equally supportive, with the ribbons and signs and such. I even saw a green and blue sign that said "Mustangs got your back." That's nice to see.
I couldn't tell you anything about the kids, or what goes on at the high school these days, but for all of the things I don't like about living in a small Midwest town, this kind of self-support is not one of them.
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