Small Town

Last night was Valentine's Day and I decided to go out. My favorite shop in town (the local butcher) was having a wine tasting from 2-6. It was wonderful, the wine was flowing, I didn't have to fake any wine discussions (I do not have a mature pallet and cannot pick out smokey, fruity, musky....), there was beer, and cheese, and being a butcher shop perfectly prepared meat. I also know most of the folks who work there because its where I spend about 35% of my monthly food stamps. By the end of the night one of the counter ladies was telling me about how she got in a bar fight on New Year's and was locked up in the county jail. yikes.

Each Valentine's Day the local movie theater prints out a full seating of tickets and gives them to the local shops in town to give away. This is supposed to increase traffic in the local shops. It is great because most folks in Lakeview go to a neighboring town 2+ hours away to resupply at Wal-mart or Costco every 4-6 weeks. It really gives everyone a chance to shop local and chat with folks they may not usually chat with. Also everyone loves freebies. The stores that give away the movie tickets also donate gifts for a raffle following the movie. And the movie is promoted as a "Sweetheart Movie."

This year the movie was P.S. I Love You. Being a huge fan of Ro-Cos (romantic comedies) I loved it. I had already seen it when I was in Vermont but it was pretty good and the Irishmen are damn hot... I loved knowing how miserable all the loggers and cowboys in tow were. It is truly a chick flick.

I headed to this movie after the wine tasting. The only other time I had seen so many people gathered in one place in Lakeview was during a football playoff game in November. It was chaos. No one knew what to do. Well maybe I didn't know what to do. Because it was free there were kids, high schoolers, parents on dates, and old folks- a total mix of ages and a true community gathering. The showing went well, the crowd laughed at most of the right places and some of the wrong (sex scenes.)

After the show was the raffle. An older gentleman who looked like a cowboy and probably owned the place went on stage to call out the winners. The prizes ranged from a $10 gift certificate from the local saloon to $30 to radio shack and a gift basket from the butchers. So, the town has a population of 2500. That is less then Wesleyan student body (2700) and more then Vinalhaven in the off-season (1400.) And it seemed that this man and his two assistants did not know a single person they pulled out of the box. I mean I am not sure if they all couldn't read or something but they had no idea who the people were until they came down front. It made me realize that I assumed everyone knows each other here. And I just can't get my head around the idea that this older gentleman, owner of the only movie theater in town, really had no idea who most of these people were.