It’s St. Patrick’s Day. If we still lived in Boston, there would be a lot of celebrating going on. Not the parade … they cancelled it this year because of all the snow. But every bar or pub, every fast food joint, would be serving something green. Bagel bakeries would be offering green bagels. Silly green hats would adorn the heads of many people who should know better.
Not around here. Nothing happening here. Nope, not a single thing. It’s just another chilly day in March.
Last night, late. We’re watching CSI. It’s late even for us (and we are not “early to bed, early to rise” people) because I’m backing up my photographic library to a new external hard drive. I didn’t expect it to take that long. I also didn’t realize I had 100,000 photographs. Okay, 99,487. Close enough.
The show is a rerun. Newer ones aren’t great, but some of the original ones from the first seven years are pretty good. Before they swapped out most of the cast. Gary Dourdan was still playing Warrick Brown, a CSI Level 2 who has a gambling addiction.
I commented that if you have a gambling addiction, Las Vegas might not be your best choice of places to live. I then paused, and said “You know, I think the hardest addiction to deal with is food. You can not drink and that’s a healthy choice. You can not smoke and your body will thank you. You can avoid illegal and most legal drugs too. You’d be in better condition as a result. But food, you gotta eat, so you are going to be confronting the enemy every day, at least two or three times. Up close and personal.”
Garry started to laugh. “Not if you move here.” By which he meant Our Town.
I laughed too. “You’re right. Eventually, you give up hoping for a good meal and eating becomes something you do because you have to.”
“You can barely find a bar. I mean, how many bars are there in the area? Four? Maybe?”
“Maybe we could advertise Our Town as the cure for sin. Because whatever it is you are addicted to … sex, drugs, food, gambling? Not here. We have churches. Grocery stores.”
“Hairdressers,” I added.
“Fingernail salons,” Garry continued. “We are the cure for evil of all kinds.”
“A little weak on the entertainment front,” I acknowledged.
I thought about it. No movie theater. No really good restaurants. No casinos, strip clubs. No clubs of any kind. Not even a classy neighborhood bar. We have churches and good, clean, family activities. Beautiful scenery.
You can’t even shop till you drop because there aren’t any stores. It’s not because Walmart drove them away. We don’t have a Walmart. That’s a couple of towns over. Thing is, I don’t think we ever had much in the way of shopping.
You couldn’t commit adultery without everyone knowing in a nanosecond. I remember when I had lost a lot of weight. Garry and I went out to grab a hamburger. The next day, Garry got the third degree. “Who was that blond we saw you with? Where’s Marilyn?”
Poor Garry trying to explain that was Marilyn. Just thinner. And her hair is white, not blond.
So if you are struggling with gambling, sex or drug addiction, a lethal love of fine dining, or shopping mania? Come on over to Our Town. We don’t have any of that stuff here.
No kidding. We don’t.
Share this:
Categories: #Photography, Blackstone Valley, Holidays, Humor, You can't make this stuff up
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
This message was brought to you by the Our Town Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Board… our offices are located in the backroom of the fingernail salon.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Come to think about it, I’m not sure where the Chamber of Commerce is or if we have one. I think there’s one for the whole Blackstone Valley. Or used to be … like ten years ago …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy St. Patrick’s day! It brings me so many good memories from the years I spent in the States. I still celebrate here, wearing something green and, if I can, drinking Irish beer with my friends from the newsroom.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like good memories. I remember the same in Boston before we moved to the country.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you both.
Leslie
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, thank you 🙂 I’m wearing my green sweater 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
So many things to comment about in this post. Did you write it stream of consciousness? Because I can’t keep up!
We live in Las Vegas and miss trees and greenery. Our church is next door to a strip joint (just kidding but I’m sure you could find one)! I do drink, mostly wine, but never when we go out for dinner. And there are so many restaurants to choose from that we usually go to the same few until we get tired of them. Lately we hate to spend the money on eating out so our date night every Tuesday consists of going to a place called Rubio’s that offers fish tacos every Tuesday from 2:30 till closing at 9:30 for $1.50. We do not watch tv- not even CSI or Law and Order (my grandfather’s favorite). We subscribe to netflix and get most all our news from NPR. My wife falls asleep on the couch almost every night while reading and I have to wake her when I’m going in or she’ll sleep out there all night. What else? I know this is only supposed to be a comment but there was just so much in your post. Maybe I should write my own post sometime about our life in Las Vegas. You know what? That might be a good idea. I’m sure people would be interested in what real people do who live in Las Vegas. I think I’ll do that and stop bothering you. Oh, and if you couldn’t tell, I loved this post! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
A close friend of ours retired to Las Vegas from central Michigan. She is loving it. Her son and grandchildren already live there, so that sealed the deal. I know from other friends in the area that Las Vegas is a major center for high tech these days. I believe it is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, probably the world. (I hope you guys don’t run out of water.) We’ve been to Arizona, but not Nevada, unless you count changing planes at the airport.
It wasn’t stream of consciousness, but it was an attempt to summarize a long conversation in a short post. We were laughing at our comparison of Las Vegas versus Uxbridge. It IS pretty funny. If Vegas is sin city, we are Dullsville. Yet Vegas is changing. The influx of white collar workers not involved in the casino industry will ultimately change the character of the area. I think it may already be happening. I’ll be very interested to hear more about it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t drink, don’t smoke, and – well, we will leave that bit, but I am sure I would fit. Sounds a bit like our village, we only have one restaurant which changes the owner at least once a year. I am not sure if the Swiss know that it is St. Patrick’s day. I only realised it from facebook actually. Looks a nice place, all the same. Do you have a cemetery, no small town is complete without a cemetery. They are the places to check on the history of the place. If you are bored you can always have a look through your 100,000 photos. I felt like an amateur, I only have 12,000.
LikeLiked by 3 people
We have a lovely cemetery. It’s an old one that goes back to the first settlers in the mid 1600s. I’ve taken a lot of pictures there. It’s in the middle of town, directly across from the lovely dam with the three benches. I’ll add a picture of it, just for you. It’s a favorite place to walk and absolutely gorgeous in the fall.
I had NO idea I had that many pictures, but these represent more than 15 years of photography. And not just mine, but Garry’s and Kaitlin’s pictures, too. Some of it is quite old (scans) of old prints. I’ve got pictures from when my granddaughter was a baby, 18 years ago. All of my son’s baby pictures are prints … he was born in the film era and was my first full-time model.
I posted a cemetery picture for you. It really IS lovely and historically interesting.
I suspect that most small towns are lot alike. It’s the nature of small town life. You grew up in London. Garry and I grew up in New York city, so we all probably find the peculiarities of small town life rather amusing. We like it here. Garry says it’s peaceful and we don’t miss most of the “city stuff” as much as other people seem to think we should. We don’t go out partying any more. We never were much in the way of party animals and now, we’re homebodies. And that’s okay.
LikeLike
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Gosh I almost forgot. Where are the days when I would have met up with friends in an Irish pup later on after work? This getting older stuff starts to bug me 🙂
LikeLike
We don’t drink any more. The usual story. But we continued to meet friends in bars long after we stopped imbibing. Around here? Church or the grocery store. There’s one place that could be considered a real bar. The rest are part of restaurants. You can get a drink, but it isn’t a pub. One of them is quite difficult to find. I miss green bagels.
LikeLiked by 1 person
My husband is Irish, so St. Patrick’s Day is a big to-do. Every silly St. Patrick’s Day hat you can imagine is in his closet and you can’t stop him from buying more. Green beer and rusty nuts, corned beef and cabbage…gosh a green bagel sounds like fun.
LikeLike
Garry is Irish, or as much Irish as he is anything else. His family is equally from Antiqua and Sligo. We used to have a good time with this holiday back in Boston, where you don’t even need to be Irish to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. But not out here. Even the Irish aren’t Irish in this neck of the woods 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
“not even the Irish are Irish” LOL thanks for the laugh
LikeLiked by 1 person
My town, too. No bar. Two liquor stores. Many good restaurants — all but one is Mexican. Movie theater run by volunteers. There was once a Woolworths, now a resale store that smells like ancient cigarette smoke (the furniture from the houses in which elderly parents have died)…
LikeLike
Small towns are funny. A good Mexican joint would be GREAT. We do have an excellent sushi place a couple of towns away. It’s our fallback position for birthdays and other celebrations. Otherwise, we sometimes think about going out … then we remember why we don’t. Garry says we actually have three bars, if you count the one at the Chinese restaurant and the one I can’t find which is behind the gas station across from the hair place. I guess four if you include the place that serves wine and beer with dinner.
Most of the restaurants offer food no one but a Valley native could eat. It’s bad. Tasteless and overcooked. Local home cookin’. I think most people’s home cooking is worse. We used to go to community “suppers” — the local version of fundraisers. I can’t do it any more. Cruel and unusual punishment. I’d rather just give them money. Please, don’t make me eat the food.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have a many spaghetti dinners to raise money for things — band trips are a major one as our high school band wins prizes in state competitions. 🙂 I haven’t been to any. I wanted to live in a place that held such events not because I wanted to attend, but because they bespeak a certain kind of community that I appreciate.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I used to go for the community, to meet people. Those were days when my granddaughter was in school. The suppers (and sometimes, breakfasts) support the high school teams, the fire department, raise money for fireworks for the 4th. Now, I give a donation. It’s pretty much entirely younger families and their kids and the noise makes Garry cringe. I can’t eat the food and he won’t. We socialize at the grocery store. I’m not kidding. It’s social central.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We need to watch “The Quiet Man” tonight. I’ve got you down in my book.
LikeLike
Yes Boss.
LikeLike