Turn which way at the fork in ...

The larger city lies in one direction, the small town in the other. 

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

In the ant’s house, the dew is a flood.
In a small town, kindness goes a long way. The smaller the town, the greater the chance an act of kindness will be noticed.
Not far from here, in a small town, an older fellow is buying groceries in the same little family-owned market he always uses. The older fellow is well known in the business. He is familiar enough that the two women working in the market know what brand of candy bars and beer he wants without a word from him.
They let him know the beer is on sale and the candy bars have been discontinued. That is excitement enough for one day, but as he leans on his cane to pull the beer from the bottom shelf of the cooler, the cane slips in a week spot of the sagging wooden floor and he nearly cracks his head on high-stacked shelves. A young man catches him just in time.
The young man helps him fish the box of beer from the lower shelf and the two women team up to check out and box his groceries. One of them asks if he is on his bike and if his dogs are with him. When they are finished, they carry the groceries out to the old man’s pickup which is parked directly in front of the store. He saunters off down the street, leaving the truck and the groceries unattended.
“He’ll be back in an hour or two,” says the woman when she returns to the register after carrying out his groceries.” He asked if I wanted to go with him.” The two women chuckle over that.
Not far from here, in a larger city, a young woman stands in the checkout line. The folks around her grumble about the length of the line but generally they are in a good mood. They find everything on their lists and the line moves quickly.
A young boy is visibly excited about the movie he has just seen at the theater next door.
“And the dumb dinosaur was named Spike,” the boy informs his mother as he stands behind the young woman.
As she looks back at the boy, the display in front of one of the wide aisles catches her eye and she remembers she hasn’t purchased the buttons she needs for the project she must take to work next week. She will have to get them later. At least she knows they have them.
Not far from here, somewhere in between the small town and the big city, a car pulls up to a stop sign at a Tee the road. The driver looks first to the left and then to the right. The larger city lies in one direction, the small town in the other.
But for some reason, the driver doesn’t know which way to turn.
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Philosophy, leadership and group dynamics

Everyone wants answers to make solid decisions. The art is to recognize the right ones when you spot them.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Newspaper publishing is really the combined, life-long study of small-town philosophy, leadership and group dynamics as it relates to ethics and resource allocation. As such, I often ask others how to practice the art.
And I get answers — but I’m never really sure that they are the right ones.
“I wonder if we are all strung together by a universal ethic or model,” says my former football coach, Carl Rice, who lived and coached in Akron, Colo, and Wyoming.
“I think one can recognize right and wrong, especially in each other. I have been blessed to do what I do. I realize I have touched a lot of people. Think how many you touch with your decisions. I realize that much of the time we concentrate on the monster, which is the far removed machine. The truth is — the struggle rages in the individual. Ethics doesn’t just happen, it is a practice.”
But in a small town, is there an abundance or shortage of practitioners, and is change the agent? I’ll relay an answer from someone I have never met before, but feel connection to. Coy Hobbs edited the Saratoga Sun, in Saratoga, Wyo. When I contacted him a few years ago, he was editor of the same small-town newspaper I managed more than 20 years prior.
“There are frequent business startups (and closings) in town as the test for any local business remains ‘Can they make it through the winter?’” according to Hobbs.
“Saratoga's population is down to less than 1,700. The LP (Louisiana Pacific) sawmill closed a year ago, the coalmines at Hanna have closed, and the school district is leading the state in enrollment declines. We don't have problems here, just challenges and opportunities to see if we are as good as we think we are.
“Despite the changes, Saratoga is still one of the truly neat places in the world. Some say it will be the next Jackson Hole, to which most reply ‘Over my dead body.’ We're trying to reach a compromise between the two positions. I am still amazed by the wealth of talent and experience the residents of this quaint, little mountain village possess. It makes you want to believe that just about anything is possible here – and I'm just the cynical newspaper editor, not the chamber of commerce exec.”
Good publishers and editors have a knack of finding and printing what people want to read.
Jerry Elijah Brown, in the forward of the biography, “High Adventure” about noted Alabama Newspaper publisher Porter Harvey (written by his son, Sam) pays tribute to that effort.
“He published what readers need and want,” Brown said of Porter Harvey. “Not only what the cops, courts, and councils of governments were doing, but also how much rain was falling in different hamlets, where a column of ants in a bank parking lot was going, how the coin laundry was finally getting a restroom and which hymn and stanza a man was singing when he dropped dead at a church service. Porter knew how to excite by understatement — a rare talent that involves skill at both writing and display.”
But as we noted before, everyone wants answers to make solid decisions. The art is to recognize the right ones when you spot them.

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