A day in the country

I was out doing what I do a lot of this time of year. Tagging trees.  Nice work.  Good to do.  Worth the time and energy.

 

After it got dark I stopped in and got a haircut in a little barber shop in the small central IL town.  This is a town of 1500 or so and it looks a lot like every other small town on the prairie.  Not much going on.  Lots of empty storefronts.  Hope for the future but not much prospect. 

 

My haircut cost 9 bucks.  I gave him a ten.  Keep the Change.  He thanked me profusely.  I guess in small town IL people don't tip.

 

I had not anything to eat, so I stopped at the little sunshine cafe for some all you could eat spaghetti.  It's Wednesday's special.  They must have thought I was starving, the plate they brought me was all I could eat.  Not el dente.  Soggy.  But as advertised, spaghetti.

 

$6.95.

 

The part of that meal most interesting was rubbernecking in on the conversation in the restaurant which like all small town restaurants are room conversations.  Not between any particular people, just people talking and others joining in invited or not to contribute their $.02 worth. 

 

The discussion was of Gas Prices, vacation plan curtailment, a new car someone bought, shortage of money, usual stuff.

 

This is not a conversation I hear in St. Charles Bistros.  There is not this universal conversation going on.

 

If I had picked up this whole little town and dropped it anywhere in the Dakotas you wouldn't have known the difference.  One last comment during one of the conversations was how the last pickup truck the fellow I was talking to cost more than he paid for his house 2 years ago.  $40,000.   In small town IL you can buy a lot of house for $40,000. But, Pickup trucks cost what they cost.

 

There is a great disconnect going on in the world.  Maybe John Edwards was right, there is two Americas.  I just think he's wrong in identifying them.  There's Urban and Rural.  Not rich and poor.

 

In retrospect, I'm not sure who's rich and who's poor in St. Charles or in Gilman.  I work enough with poor folks in the inner city to tell you their poverty is far different from the poverty of folks in Rural IL.  Of course, all that is being changed by $5 corn at 200 Bushels per Acre. 

 

Life as we know it is about to change - AGAIN.