City Vs. Country

I’ve always had a split personality of sorts when it comes to the things and places I enjoy. I grew up in a city, but loved going camping with my family.

I like cities, the bigger the better. I love the things most people hate. The hustle and bustle, the rush, even the mass of people. I like big buildings, and being on the highest floor of the tallest building. If you want pizza at 3 a.m.; you can have it. If you want to go out or go shopping for shoes at midnight, you can do it.

I like being a part of the whole, never having to wonder what to do because you live in a place where there are hundreds of things to do at any time of the day or night and thousands of people to do it with.

When I met my husband and mutual friends suggested we go out, he wasn’t much interested. I was a city girl, and he didn’t like city girls. That was okay, though. He was a country boy, and I didn’t much like country boys.

Things change. Part of that change is because the country boy that didn’t like me much married me. His love of the outdoors and of solitude and peace and quiet rubbed off on me. He dislikes cities for the reasons I like them. He hates crowds and traffic and the constant rush around him.

Part of that change was becoming a mom, and realizing the value of raising a child in a small town. My family isn’t the only one that loves and cares about my son in a small town. His teachers, his church family, and our friends do too. He isn’t just another face in the crowd in a small town.

There’s a little place close to where we live. The locals just call it the One Stop. From the road, it looks like a non-descript little gas station in the middle of nowhere. When we first moved here, I wasn’t sure it was even in business.

We discovered it is the heartbeat of the little community it serves. They have coffee starting at 5 a.m. They also have sandwich meat cut off the “stick;” basics like milk, bread and eggs; and everything from news to gossip to plumbing supplies to coloring books.
Our neighbors invited us to the Friday night fish fry at the One Stop. The gas station serves fish? Oh, yes, they do. And ribs. And shrimp. Every Friday night, the most happening place on our side of Clay County is at the One Stop.

The folks there know the locals and the strangers. They know who is sick, who is malingering, who is going downhill in a hurry and who is on the road to recovery. They know who is flirting, who is chasing, and who is being caught. It’s an education to go eat fish on Friday night. And, surprisingly, it’s a pleasure.

There is no hustle and bustle. It can take two hours to finish off a cup of coffee. The only traffic jams are cars trying to get around the tractors on the highway outside. The tallest buildings are the silos. If you want pizza at 3 a.m. you better have one in your freezer.

As a city girl, I loved going to new restaurants and trying different things. Driving 45 minutes to get across town and standing in line for an hour to get seated was no big deal. There was always a huge variety on the menu. It took forever to get waited on and then to get the ticket to pay. It was just part of being in the city.

Now, I drive eight minutes on Friday night to go to the same place. There are three things on the menu. Even with one waitress, you still get your food and your ticket quicker than it takes to get a glass of water in the city. You may have to stand in line to pay if the one waitress is serving instead of up at the cash register.

I liked the new and different and always on the go of the city. That was then. This is now, and I am discovering, much to my ongoing amazement, that I also like the steady and slow and always the same of the country. My “city” never rubbed off on my country boy husband. But his “country” sure has rubbed off on me.
　

Update On Customer Yes, Service No

Kudos to Connie at the Public Service Commission. We had been promised the phone cable would be buried on a certain date. I had decided if I didn't see activity by noon, I would call the PSC.

Connie beat me to it. She called me at 10 a.m. Were they there? No ma'am. She said she would take care of it. Phone company trucks started rolling in at 2 p.m. Our neighbor talked to the workers, who said they had gotten orders to do the job, and not leave until it was done. They stayed until 6:30 p.m.

Connie called me again Monday morning, following up. Did the workers come, and did I have service? Yes. And where should I send her flowers? She laughed, and said she was happy to help. I was happy to have her help too. Otherwise, I would still be in CenturyTel hell, paying my bill but not getting service.

So thanks, Ms. Connie at the Public Service Commission. I'm not sure what your exact job title is, but you got this customer the service she was looking for. You were kind, concerned, dedicated, and willing to go the extra mile. We truly appreciate your help.

Customer, Yes. Service, No.

I’ve always felt sorry for people who had to deal with customers all day long. I’m a people person, but I also know that dealing with some folks can be trying.

People can be mean and rude and short tempered and, well, just not very bright. Any one who watches any version of any reality show, from Cops on down the line to the whiny girls trying to get a man to the whiny college kids trying to live together in the same house to whatever the networks have come up with now know what I mean.

I try to be a good customer. I pay my bills on time, I’m polite when I need to call with a question or a problem, and I remember that the person answering the phone is not the cause of my problem. They are just the person having to answer the phone.

Trying to be a good customer has gotten real difficult lately. Me and my phone company are in a battle. I’ve called in reinforcements, but I shouldn’t have had to.

When we moved, we didn’t have a phone line to our house. Okay. We dealt with that by calling the company on May 18th. Their solution to the problem was to string a line from a phone box almost a mile away up to our house.

Three months later, the line still hasn’t been buried. It is laying across the road, across the neighbors’ driveways, over bushes and shrubs and fences. Every time a neighbor pulls into their drive or mows their yard or someone drives over the line just right, we lose our phone service.

We call an average of twice a week to report an outage. Each time, they fill out a repair ticket, and each time we explain the problem and they promise to get something done. Each time, not much happens.

It’s frustrating for us personally, but on a bigger scale too. I got my first bill four days after I moved in. The company has no problem sending me a bill, but has a real problem giving me service I am paying for.

If we as customers do our part they should do their part. Not just me, but every customer everywhere. They certainly want their money and will fuss and call and threaten if we don’t pay. Why don’t we have some sort of power if they don’t uphold their end of the bargain?

Thinking along those lines, I started doing some research, which led me to the Arkansas Public Service Commission. They oversee utilities in the state. I had a nice little chat with Connie on a Friday, and she promised to look into my problem. It would take three to five days, she said. Three hours later she called back and said the phone company had promised to have the line buried by the next Friday.

Wow. Now there’s customer service. At 10 a.m. on that Friday, Connie called me back. Was the line buried? Umm, no. Connie said she would take care of it. I didn't know what she was doing, but I felt better with her on my side.

I don’t feel better about my phone company. Three months should be plenty of time to take care of something in a timely manner, particularly since my payment for my bill is making it to them in a timely manner.

I’m their customer, and a new one at that. But their service? It certainly leaves something to be desired.

Under The Earth

My son Logan loves to explore. He particularly likes being outdoors. He is happiest when he is hunting or camping or fishing or climbing a mountain or doing the thing I hate most--exploring a cave.

Logan and I had been home from visiting family on my mother’s side in Indiana less than a day when my husband’s parents called him. They were camping up at the White River at Bull Shoals and wanted us to come up.

I stopped unpacking our bags and began repacking them. Logan, Gary, and his dad had a lot of fun trout fishing and did pretty well. It’s a subjective thing up there. Sometimes the fish bite as quickly as you can drop the bait in the river, and sometimes they won’t bite no matter what you do. This trip up, they seemed to be hungry and the guys enjoyed themselves.

We were all set to come home Sunday, then I saw an ad for Blanchard Springs Caverns. Logan has been to several caves, including the one at Bull Shoals. He has never been to one the size of Blanchard Springs, though, and we thought he would enjoy it.

They wanted to go on the "Wild Tour," so we bought the required boots Sunday for the Monday morning trip. Then Gary and Logan got to the Cave and discovered something not on the informational brochure we had gotten. The Wild Tour takes five hours. And it costs $75 a piece.
I’m claustrophobic in the extreme, which is why only Gary and Logan were going in the first place. It would be $150 for them to go into the cave, on a tour that would require hard hats, ropes, crawling on their hands and knees, and slithering on their belly. I was thinking folks needed to be paid to go on that, not have to pay.

Gary and Logan went on the Discovery Trail, which took about two hours and still required lots of walking and climbing; 686 steps in all. The last part of the tour is called "heart attack hill" because it is a straight vertical climb up stairs.

They had a great time. Oddly enough, the guys want to go back and try the Wild Tour. They are thinking of making a return trip for Logan’s birthday next month.

If they do, I will go with them…to the front door of the visitor center. I can’t breathe if I get any closer, so I will drop them off and then go read a good book or something, safely above ground.
When they get back, they will talk about all the tight spaces and confined areas they were in, and tell me how great it was. And I will smile, and be so thankful for open spaces and fresh air.