Guest Post: The Gift of Rural North Dakota

After reading my thoughts about the Hazelton story, Troy had a great point about how sometimes a town just isn’t the right fit for you, so I asked him to write a guest post, which he very quickly did. He’s one of the funniest people I know, and as an all around great guy, you would think he could easily get along anywhere. I miss having him nearby, but sometimes, a family just has to go somewhere else. Go check him out over on Twitter and YouTube!

The Gift of Rural North Dakota

by: Troy Heidt

I grew up in rural areas all my life.   I always thought it was normal to have people looking in your shopping cart at the supermarket.   I thought that noticing rather or not your neighbor Cindy had her boyfriend’s car parked in front of her house all night was just the neighborly thing to do.   It’s even more neighborly if you exchange such information with your other friendly neighbors.   I learned that when someone offends you, the best way to deal with it is to just not speak to them for twenty or thirty years.   I learned how to be afraid of crowded places like a mall food court at noon, or The Denver Airport.   You can always tell us “rural” folks, we are the ones clutching our purses tightly or moving our wallets to our front pockets.

My wife grew up in Helena, Montana.  It was Montana’s capital city and she knew the joys of living by a Wal-Mart and going down the block for fast food.   She could shop without being watched.   She didn’t know most of her neighbors, so whoever was parked in front of their house was irrelevant. Her advice for offense is, “Get over it!”  She’s not freaked out by large groups of people and she doesn’t seem to be as self aware as most of the small town folk I know.

Marrying me was one of the hardest things my wife ever had to do.  Not just because I’m a self centered, lazy, and neglectful person- but she struggled because I brought her from a life of total freedom – to a life of total bondage.   She was forced to observe and live under the unwritten rules of rural society.

Some people thought she dressed funny.   Some people thought she talked funny.   Some folks thought it was funny that she wanted to go to McDonalds so badly.   She would get stares and backhanded questions when we first moved into our honeymoon town of 500 people that she hated.   She was looked at like a freak and the only thing she could think was, “Why are all these freaks, thinking I’m a freak!”   Life is a lot different when the minority becomes the majority and tells you that the way you live and the tastes you have are wrong!

The problem with our rural attitude is the fact that we don’t get as many chances to fail as more populated areas do.   Fat kids get to play on the basketball teams.   Loud and obnoxious people get to make decisions because we fear them.   People who dropped out of beauty school can still cut hair if you’re willing to sit in their kitchen and give them a “donation”.  You can be one of the rudest and most self centered people in town and still be a deacon at the local church.  We have a slide rule for family and friends and we let our amigos get away with murder.   If we don’t know you; we’ll run you out of our town for looking at us funny.

Now, I’m not against small town living.   I’ve lived in small towns my whole life.   I’ve even got my wife to come around to small town thinking.   We had a lady move into our town a couple of years ago and she’d come from a bigger place.   She had the answers to all of our problems!   She ended up moving back to where she came from after a year and a half of not being able to fix us.   I can’t say we were all that sad to see her leave. After she left we incorporated some of the changes she’d suggested.  They worked really well- but we weren’t going to let an “outsider” come in and show us up!

In a small town they say it takes up to five years before people begin to “accept” you- let alone respect you!   Most of us just don’t want to invest that much time into trying to impress people who really don’t impress us all that much.   On top of the battle to just prove you are a person, let alone a good one, we have harsh elements and scarce resources. There are two types of people who move into rural areas- people who get there and fall in love with the culture and area in spite of the hardships, and people who realize in the face of a culture shock: this isn’t my cup of tea.

I didn’t mind small town North Dakota all that much, but it wasn’t where I could best serve my purpose.   The problem with the whole Hazelton row is how it’s being handled.   Hazelton isn’t a bad place, it’s no different than any other small town.   The family from Florida that moved there just had to get away for awhile to realize that Hazelton wasn’t their home.   They had elderly loved ones who needed them and they had a different culture in their heart.   They will now go back to Florida and have more respect and appreciation for their home than they ever had before.   That’s a gift that the people of North Dakota have given them that will last them a lifetime.   I know, because it’s the same gift they gave to me.

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