I live in a small town where things that in other settings may seem ordinary and everyday are a big deal for us. It is one of those cities where the local newspaper publishes who had family in from out of town this last week. I live in a city where not only do you know who’s loose dog that is crossing the street but you can call it by name. It’s a city where if something changes you notice and you particularly notice changes that speak of changes in society. Changes that make you ask “What is this world coming to?”
It is in small towns like mine where cultural changes are slower at becoming the norm or at least slower at being culturally acceptable. Everything from mini-skirts, divorce, interracial marriages, cultural changes are just slower in coming to a small town and when they first arrive its easy to notice. Most changes are for the better but all are slower in coming. We are “behind the times”, we still don’t have a Wal –Mart (or a Starbucks!).
The last few weeks they have been remodeling our local McDonalds and that’s big news for us. This is our only McDonalds restaurant. Those in the big city could just detour a few blocks and find another, I had to alter my whole routine. Some days just the drive through was open, other days my chair and table were missing, it was like going to church and finding someone setting in your pew, just messes up the whole day.
This morning I went to McDonalds and found the dining room open and all new seating, very nice!, was the first impression. As I set there dining on the best breakfast in our small town I noticed that the dining room had fewer chairs and remembered the playground has been gone for weeks. Most of the booths that used to seat four have been replaced by smaller tables with two chairs each, that’s a big change. I remember fast food places as a place for crowds, youthful noise, crowded tables, and busloads of out of town visitors. A place where husbands and fathers stole French fries from their wife and rowdy kids sitting at the same table. A place where seven people try to occupy a booth built for four.
Today, at 6 AM it was intimate couples or single persons. Some like me checking their email and face book accounts. Some like me quietly preparing for the day’s activities, drinking one more cup of coffee to dust the cob webs out of the attic. Families are smaller, McDonald’s customers are older, and we connect electronically rather than face to face across a booth. Today McDonalds is one more extension of my office, not a place to entertain my kids. I sent an email to my wife while setting alone, quietly sipping my coffee.
It dawned on me while sitting there that McDonalds was catering to the same customer that it did 40 years ago when he ran with a bunch of rowdy teenagers, the same customer it catered to when he had a young family and needed a playground to help entertain the kids, the one that is now 56 sipping his third cup of coffee, remembering life with 5 kids at home, fun trips to McDonalds, and wishing life wouldn’t change so fast.
The remodel at McDonalds is likely front page news this week, unless some long forgotten cousin comes to town, or we win the football game Friday night, or someone is celebrating their 50th anniversary, in which case you can read about the remodel in next week’s paper. Small towns, where old news is still worth printing and remembering, where change is always a current topic.
Yep, my world has changed.
David
