So This Is What a Community Does

A cliche about small towns is that you can dial the wrong number and still talk for twenty minutes.  Well, that's happened here for us.

Middletown Springs is small enough that everybody knows everybody else's business.  Within hours of the arrest of one of the local nuisances, I'd estimate that a couple of hundred people knew about it.  [And remember there are only about 600 adults in Middletown Springs and there is no party line... well, there IS the internet, which IS the party line now!]  If someone gets seriously ill, fifteen people will show up with food within the next day.  You rarely have to ask for a significant favor, because if it's significant enough, someone already knows about it and will call you to ask if they can help.

We know that there are many people we're inviting for whom this trip represents a real effort.  Other vacation plans deferred or canceled, work trips re-scheduled, trying to fit a stop in Vermont along an academic trip from India to Wales.  We're touched by the ways in which so many of you are excited about our pending marriage.

We also know that there are some people we're inviting for whom this trip will be a deep economic burden.  But here again, the Middletowners are coming through.  We've had several people volunteer, without our asking or even hinting, to have a guest or two stay in their homes.  So if the cost of a hotel or B&B room would be a significant hardship, please let us know, and we'll arrange for you to stay with someone we think you'll enjoy.

Let Middletowners help, if you need it.  That's what a community does, and we're grateful that you're a part of it.

AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY:
H is right about this, but I wanted to add two other notes. Yesterday was a tough day for me for many reasons unrelated to the wedding. I drove up to see our friends who are hosting our ceremony. They listened and hugged and basically held me close in their spirit and in their home, located in these mountains Herb and I love.

Herb went up to see the site with Melody a few hours later. Emmett asked if we would like him to build an arbor for us.

Several hours later, I spoke with the woman who has been at the heart of this town's activities, pot lucks, support network. Nan will be at the wedding of course and is one of those who has volunteered space in her home for our friends. She gave us a pounded bark painting that she brought back from Mexico - a scene of a wedding - because she thought of us on her travels.  In saying thank you, I told her of our nerves and Herb's "vapours".  She said, "Tell him this is Middletown. Not to worry."

Welcome to our home.