As I was digging into reviving my blog I found this piece I wrote but never posted. It was abandoned after one of my husband’s many trips to the hospital, and I simply stopped thinking about my blog. But in reading it, I decided it was worth posting, even if it’s a couple of years old. I’m going to backdate it, but I’m actually putting it up here in 2023. So here we go.
We recently received an invitation to our high school reunion, and one item in the itinerary seemed to define what it was like growing up in a small town: “Street Dance at the Stoplight.”
No, The Stoplight isn’t the name of a venue. It’s THE stoplight. The only one in town. The one they installed in the 50’s, welcoming it with a town celebration and a hula hoop contest. The light still hangs there, at the corner of Central Avenue and Main Street, also known as Highway 2. That’s the one that will hold you in this small town, although temporarily, if you are headed to Glacier National Park from Interstate 15.
I didn’t actually graduate in Cut Bank, but I was born there, and went to school there when I wasn’t in Alaska. I’ve been invited to all the reunions because of our shared childhoods. Probably the most important one was in 1986, when an all-decade reunion was held (you need enough graduates to make it a real party in a small town.) I flew there from New York City, met my junior-high boyfriend, and promptly married him and high-tailed it out of New York.
Having lived in a variety of places from an Alaska village to New York City, I can confidently say I’m glad I grew up in a small town. There are experiences you can’t have in a city, even one of moderate size. We could wander anywhere in town. If we made trouble our families heard about it. My mother came home from work one day and wanted to know why I was limping. Since I was sitting down, I couldn’t figure out how she knew. It seems someone saw me walking home and called her to ask about me. We had been swimming at the river and I stepped on a piece of glass. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid I’d have to have stitches. I got stitches.
Sleeping in the yard with friends was a summer tradition. I vividly remember staring up and seeing the Milky Way stretching across sky, discussing with my friends what we thought might be out there. Sometimes we would meet up with the boys, who were “sleeping” in one of their yards, and together we would raid gardens. Nothing quite as wonderful as a filched tomato right from the vine. I haven’t seen the Milky Way in decades. I miss it.
I remember standing at the edge of town and seeing the wheat fields, planted and fallow, stretching for as far as I could see, and aching to go. Anywhere. Just not there, in that little town. Today I look back and realize just how lucky I was to have grown up there. Yes, everyone knows your business. People knew the story of my background, the sordid and the sublime, long before I ever had an inkling of it. But that small world gave me friends, independence, little adventures, and a safe way to learn about the world. To borrow a line from Stephen King: “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.”
Travels with Billie 