Swansea, SC
I’ve taken to noting the kinds of businesses and institutions that no small town lives without. A deli, of course, bars, food stores, at least one antique dealer, which presumes at least one antique in every town, no matter how tiny.
A gas station, one or more churches, schools, someone to do hair, if not in a shop, then in her home. And at least three Dollar Stores. Can’t live without a bargain.
Funeral parlors do come up, but they apparently don’t make the must-have list. I guess it depends on how many dead people there are in any given town.
Now and again you come across a business particular to an area – like the combine, tractor and thresher store. Or the big stretch of land set up for Antique Tractor Pulls. Somebody is making money by providing people a space within which they can pull old farm equipment around. Go figure.
Today I saw yet another sign advertising “Deer Prepared here.”
What do you think they are preparing the deer for? Christmas? “Here, put on these jingly bells, you’re gonna love them. How about a fur-trimmed Santa hat? You’ll look like a reindeer, believe me bubby.”
Or maybe it’s more serious preparation. “Look the season is coming up, you want to practice your zig-zagging, your camouflage techniques, get your sniffer checked, your hearing tested. Don’t wait until some Bozo is shooting at you to discover you’ve forgotten how to disappear into the woods.”
And speaking of preparing, they’re very big on preparing for the Lord down here. They may have a church the size of a chicken coop, but the sign out front is huge, often inviting, and always worth reading. A few of the signs from around these parts:
1) STOP AND REJOICE…RECEIVE THE LUNG WATER. This one had me so confused I doubled back to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong. I don’t know about you, but if I had lung water, I wouldn’t be rejoicing. I’d be drowning. Did they mean to say Lord’s wafer, but ran out of letters? Didn’t anybody throw a dollar in the basket last Sunday?
2) WRINKLED FROM YOUR BURDENS? COME IN FOR A FAITH LIFT.
I like a church with a sense of humor, and no shame about really bad puns. These Christians are obviously my kind of people.
3) GIVE TO GOD WHAT IS RIGHT. NOT WHAT IS LEFT. Ah, the financial statement.
4) NOW SERVING: THE BREAD OF LIFE. The epicurean approach.
5) And finally, the simplest of all: JESUS IS ALIVE.
Not Jesus lives. Or Jesus is among us. But the can’t-argue-with-it-statement, Jesus is alive. Well, first of all, where? In Swansea, South Carolina? Why’d he pick this town and not some other small town. Land values? And second of all, where is he investing these days? I could use some advice.
But maybe the most curious thing I’ve discovered about America’s small towns are the number of stores that sell chrome. Bob’s Chrome Store. Come in and buy some chrome.
What for? Your bike’s rusted? Your bumper is getting a little pitted? You just want a pick-me-up and why not some nice new chrome?
Your town leaves its dead bodies out for the garbage man because you don’t have a funeral parlor, but you have a chrome store? I like shiny stuff too, but it seems to me that you could collect the tinfoil off gum wrappers instead, and use your town funds to at least build a cemetery. It’s the humane thing to do, no?
And now that I’m on the subject of signs, do you suppose that the new funeral parlor will have a sign in front? “Happy Hollow Funeral Home. People prepared.”
The deer would have a good laugh over that one.
Betty
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