Thank you all for your comments & love of small towns......

.AAAAA.....I appreciate your adding experiences to the thread.....they are most welcome as sharing these experiences is most enjoyable to read. It is amazing how sometimes we have something that we don't appreciate at the time, but later on, we look back & find that we really appreciated it & want to go back to the closeness that is missing in the other places.

Your computer example brought to mind when I was looking at purchasing the used Dodge truck I was wanting. I had been brousing the used car lot (I had been renting a car & it was so expensive). I found the truck that was just right.....but I didn't want to spend the cash & was thinking I would look into financing through my credit union. The salesman gave me the keys to the truck & said take if & drive it for the weekend....we will look into financing also. I just couldn't imagine taking a truck I didn't own & had no idea if I could even qualify for a loan or not all by myself......I refused but he kept insisting......so I decided I would drive it to the farm & park it there.....lol cause I was too afraid to drive it. Besides, I had just dinged the door of the rental car while backing out of the garage, so I wasn't feeling very good about my driving skills in the first place.

I drove the truck back to my farm & parked it.....couldn't get financing through the credit union by Saturday morning, so I called to take the truck back immediately......they said they thought they had something lined up for financing so keep the truck until Monday....they wouldn't take NO for an answer......so the truck continued to sit in my driveway.

The county fair was going on in town & I was wanting to check it out.....so I got a bit brave & figured I could drive the truck & park it far away from everyone. When I got there that was exactly what I did. I walked around the fair for awhile & saw everything of interest to me......went back to go home & my truck was packed tight with cars all around it. How I was going to get out without hitting something was beyond me. The truck was huge compaired to anything I had ever driven & it would have been hard manuvering a small car in that situation. It took me over 30 back & forwards with tiny turns to finally get out without touching another car & a sigh of relief when I got the truck safely back into my driveway.

The concept of being allowed to just drive home for the weekend, a car you are interested in buying was so foreign to me, it was tough to accept. In California, they don't even let you drive the car off the lot yourself & never let you take the out for a test drive without an armed guard in the back seat....lol.

The trust & kindness & above all, the support in a small town is definitely wonderful.

I know, TaintedGoth, 8000 must seem huge compared to 1000.....lol....but 8000 is so tiny after living in a county of millions (Los Angeles).....& the small town that I lived in ihad over 150,000. One just gets lost there in the crowd.

I finally feel like a real person who isn't invisable.
Debbie