Life in a Hamlet

Oh the bane of small rural towns!  There's nothing to do ... there's no place to go ... It's like a ghost town ...  How can you live in a place like this?  All are comments I have heard about the small town I live in.  Several years ago my family hosted an exchange student from Germany.  When the coordinator came to visit to inspect our family and home to ensure the well being of the visiting student we went over the various forms.  When filling out the forms, I listed the size of our town as 'small'.   The coordinator said we should more accurately describe our town as a 'hamlet'.  Ouch!  Our town wasn't always this small.  Obviously, it began small; but then grew to boast a couple of groceries, restaurants, mercantile, phone exchange, movie theatre, drug store, liquor store, shoe store, seven different churches, two gas stations, bank, grade school, high school, train station and the grain elevator.  We were actually a booming town at one time.  Then the wars happened and the younger generations decided living in a small rural town or farming the family farm wasn't the ideal for their life.  No blame is meant here.  This happened and still happens all over the world.  It is as if society goes on some bizarre diet and soon the town begins to shrink.  Businesses fail as some move away and others refuse to support what they have.  What's a small town supposed to do when it has heard the death knoll?  We can't all shrivel up and die!  The town I live in lost it's schools to a consolidated school district comprised of the students from five different towns years before we moved here.  It had lost most of its businesses and all but two of the churches as well, and one of those churches doesn't have a weekly service due to its hierarchy.  We still had the grain elevator, the bank, a gas/service station, restaurant, grocery store and one church.  A Day Care has come into town and lasted.  Other businesses have tried and failed.  We lost our Post Office.  The restaurant has struggled, opening and closing under new operators.  The grocery store foundered and died.  Through it all we had a long-time mayor who worked very hard to keep the town going.  He, too, passed away a few years ago.  Some saw a need and formed a Community Association which began working to stay the hands of time, if you will.  This group has since joined a statewide PRIDE organization which fosters the continuation and growth of small towns.  A committee formed and worked on grants to see a new park which was completed this summer.  The  restaurant is stronger.  Two years years ago one enterprising man from the community purchased and began renovating several of the rundown buildings on Main Street.  Within the past couple of months a fitness center has opened and so has a beauty/barber shop.  The community got together and worked on developing a community owned grocery store.  The store opened a little over a week ago.  It is non-profit and run totally by volunteers.  We may be small and seemingly going nowhere; nevertheless, the spirit of the community still lives and we are seeing new growth!  We are going strong after 125 years!